


The Second Curse

by IndigoJane92



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Curses, F/M, Gen, Nightmares, OC, Sisters, curse, powers, second, the
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoJane92/pseuds/IndigoJane92
Summary: Terra never had a full story in the animated series (TTGo, though funny at times, does not count), and I wanted to change that. This story picks up after the Raven Apocalypse, but before Things Change, and ignores the whole Brotherhood of Evil story arc. And I figured, to really give one of the most fascinating characters a proper ending, I'd first have to start at the very beginning...





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Teen Titans fanfic. It involves an OC and eventually a BB/OC pairing. It picks up after the Raven Apocalypse, but before the “Things Change” episode (though that will eventually be covered). Note: there is no First Curse. This is not a sequel to anything. Hope you enjoy! : )  
> [And no, your eyes do not deceive you! This fic is also being carried out on fanfiction.net. I will update there and here simultaneously. New chapters are always in the works, even though updates may be slow. Stay tuned! :) ]

 

_Medina had always longed for a child, but was cursed with infertility. Her husband left her after years of fruitless efforts to start a family; each blaming the other for the lack of results. Medina tried all manner of treatments, everything from IVF to a different man every week, all the while praying for a miracle. Her efforts went on for 3 years, but she could never conceive. Finally, in a desperate last attempt, she turned to the Dark Arts. Medina made a deal with something she didn’t understand, and she eventually paid the price._

_The Entity she contacted has no definite title, for it is impossible to describe it with something as simple as a name. Some religions refer to it as a devil, or even Satan, but it’s so much more than that. It’s the quintessence of all that is negative and cruel and truly evil in this world. It’s what the Devil would be made of and answer to, if there were a Devil. Medina knew it was something Dark, but it offered a ritual that promised her her wishes would be fulfilled. That was all that mattered to her; she couldn’t see how something that could help her could be evil. The ritual involved a fresh, male corpse being reanimated by the Entity in order to give Medina what she wanted. She was horrified by the ritual, but sure enough, a couple months afterwards she discovered she was pregnant with twin girls. The Entity, as dark as it may have been, seemed to have given her what she’d asked for and more. It only asked for one thing in return; that she name the children as it commanded. Only after their birth, did she see how fitting the names were, and she knew it was meant to be._

_The twins were born on October 31 st, and though they were twins, they couldn’t have been more different. One had blue eyes and hair the bright yellow-blond color of the sun at dawn, while the other had dark eyes and black hair. She named the blonde girl Dawn, and the black-haired girl Sabbath (she never could quite figure out the meaning behind Sabbath’s name, but she jokingly told herself it was an Ozzy reference and left it at that). Her friends and doctors found the babies’ differing looks strange, especially since Medina herself had red hair and green eyes, but she just shrugged it off. She never claimed a father, and she never revealed her secret about the ritual and the Entity. Medina figured that, considering the manner in which the children were conceived, they would have to be special. If only she knew how special they would become. But Medina didn’t care about their looks; she considered them her children and couldn’t have loved them more. Medina was overjoyed to finally be a mother, but her joy was short-lived. _

_Three months after the twins were born, Medina was found dead in her own home. Her cause of death was deemed suicide due to postpartum depression. She was found next to a Dark Arts book with a letter in her hand addressed to Dawn and Sabbath._

_“_ My dearest daughters, I love you with all my heart and I always will. Everything I have done, I have done for you. It’s time for me to go, but I have faith you will be well looked after. I can’t say what lies ahead, but if worse comes to worst, your father will help you. He told me you were destined for greatness and He would never let anything happen to you. He believes you both have wonderful potential. Listen to Him, my children. Listen to your dreams. He will guide you. Grow, be strong, and fear nothing. You are far stronger than you know. I believe in you. 

                              Love,

                  Your mother, Medina Jane Hellingsworth _”_

_Sabbath and Dawn went into foster care, but trouble soon arose. The girls were first adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Collins. The Collins’ were an older couple who’d spent their younger years as entrepreneurs but thought that, now that they were financially secure, it would be nice to have a family. If only they knew what they were getting themselves into.  As the girls grew older they began to have nightmares which grew more and more frequent as they approached their teens. Odd, unexplainable things happened around them that their adoptive parents found most disturbing. Dawn threw a tantrum on her 11 th birthday and as she stomped her foot, an earthquake struck. Sabbath was given a candle set on her 12th birthday, but was told she couldn’t light them without adult supervision. Having lost a house to a fire in their younger years, the Collins’ kept all matches well out of reach. Yet, every time Mr. or Mrs. Collins walked by the girls’ room, they found Sabbath reading by candle light. Neither matches nor lighters were ever found. It started out as just little things like that, but it soon became too much to handle. _

_On their 13 th birthday, Dawn and Sabbath awoke screaming. Used to the night terrors, but acting on instinct, the Collins’ rushed in to check on them. The girls explained it was another nightmare. They couldn’t remember much, but they said their arms felt like they were burning. When the pain didn’t subside, the Collins took Dawn and Sabbath to the hospital. Within the hour, handprints appeared on the girls’ forearms. It looked as though someone had come up behind them and grabbed them by the arms. The marks weren’t any kind of ink or stain that the doctors could determine. They looked like a combination of bruises and burns. The girls rushed to assure the doctors that the Collins’ had not harmed them, and that they had simply woken up like that. However, because no one could say exactly where the marks came from, and because the girls were under the Collins’ watch when they’d gotten them, Dawn and Sabbath were immediately taken from the Collins’ custody and put back in the orphanage._

_After that, the strange occurrences got worse and worse. Dawn and Sabbath’s night terrors disturbed the other girls in the home, as did their stories about the Dark Man that spoke to them in their dreams. The girls soon became outcasts. Sabbath and Dawn could often be seen together in the park at recess, talking in whispers and completely ignoring the other girls. Small fires would break out in Sabbath’s presence, and sand castles would inexplicably collapse when Dawn walked by. Sink pipes would freeze in the middle of June while Dawn was brushing her teeth. A tree would lose all of its leaves overnight if Sabbath had been reading under it the day before. When Dawn and Sabbath fought, the sprinklers overhead would burst._

_When the girls were 14 they were adopted separately, since after hearing about what went on around them, even the bravest of foster parents didn’t dare take both of them. Over the next two years, Dawn and Sabbath went from home to home, never staying under the same roof for more than 4 or 5 months at a time. As they grew, their powers grew stronger. The more they practiced, the stronger they became. It became clear to the girls that their powers were related to the four elements; water, fire, earth, and air._

_Dawn was frightened of her abilities, as well as the Dark Man in her dreams who tried to get her to use them more and more. She hated to practice them, and so her control over them became erratic and she often lost control. Sabbath, however, loved her abilities. She practiced every day, as the Dark Man told her. He would show her in her dreams how to develop her powers, as well as what she would someday be able to do with them. As her strength developed with practice, she was one day gifted with a pair of large, black, bat wings. The process hurt, but Sabbath thought of it as a small price to pay for being able to fly. The Dark Man told her they were a reward for how well she listened, and that if she continued to practice, he would continue to give her gifts._

_Over the years, the sisters eventually lost touch with each other as they were moved from city to city. By the time the two turned 16, Dawn had run away and had been considered missing for over 6 months, and Sabbath was on her fourth foster home that year (the wings made it harder for foster parents to accept her). Sabbath’s new foster family moved her to a city that already had strange inhabitants; Jump city. The new family hoped that a city that idolizes teens with superpowers might be more comfortable for Sabbath. It turned out to be the best (and worst) thing they could’ve done for her._

* * *

 


	2. A Fresh Start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This us Chapter 1 of My OC Teen Titans Fanfic, The Second Curse. If you have not done so, please read the Prologue first. Note: there is no First Curse; this is not a sequel to anything. Hope you enjoy! : )

* * *

  
  
  
‘ _Alright,’_ thought Sabbath, as she walked down the street, kicking a pebble. ‘ _A new city, a new start.’_

                It was Sabbath’s first day in Jump City. Luckily, it was April Vacation, so she wouldn’t have to face a new school for another week. Her newest foster parents, Jack and Cindy Miller, thought it was the perfect time to move, though they wouldn’t say why they had to move so far away (nor did they mention the city’s strange inhabitants); after all, Jump City was all the way across the country from Boston. All they would say was that moving during spring break would give Sabbath plenty of time to settle in before having to rush into school. Little did they know, they only prolonged the inevitable. Soon it would be the same awkward situation all over again.

_Teacher: “Today we have a new student joining us. Let me introduce Sabbath Hellingsworth. Tell us a bit about yourself, Sabbath.”_

_Sabbath: “Well, my legal name is Sabbath, but please call me ‘Jane’. I just moved here from-“_

_Classmate 1: “How is ‘Jane’ a nickname for ‘Sabbath’?  And what kind of name is ‘Sabbath’ anyway?”_

_Classmate 2: “isn’t it blasphemous?”_

_Sabbath: “It’s just my name. And I chose ‘Jane’ because it was my mother’s middle name.”_

_\--awkward silence at the mention of a dead parent--_

_Classmate 3: “Why are you wearing a sweatshirt in May?”_

_Sabbath: “…because. It’s comfortable.”_

_Classmate 4: “Why’d you transfer so close to the end of the year?_

_Sabbath: “Because I just moved here. For my father’s work.”_

Having to start things off with lies is uncomfortable, but nowhere near as uncomfortable it would be to explain to them about the frequent adoptions and fact that the hoodie is necessary to hide her wings (she uses make-up to cover the marks on her arms). Then would come the stares and the isolation, along with all the other perks that came with being The New Girl. Add to that trying to keep up with all new classes, learning her way around a new school and moving into another new house with new rules and new stepparents and wondering when they’ll kick her out, all the while trying to hide her abilities from everyone (except her new stepparents, who already know), and it just makes things very difficult. Due to the frequent moves, Sabbath knew all too well what the next week would bring.

_‘I wish it didn’t have to be this way…’_ thought Sabbath. _‘But things could be worse. The Millers are very nice people, and they really do seem to care about me. I hate having a curfew, but it’s not so bad. They say that I can go out wherever I want, as long as I’m home by 6:30 for dinner, which I guess is reasonable. They also bought me a cellphone to keep in touch, which is a little clingy, but they keep saying that in a city this size, it’s good to have (plus, they pay the bill). But they act as if I’ve never seen a city before! We moved here from Boston for crying out loud. But whatever. I still can’t believe they got me a kitten though. I guess they hope I won’t feel so alone if I have a pet. They think ‘Robin’ is a silly name for a kitten, but ‘Sabbath’ is a silly name for a girl. Besides, that’s the name the shelter gave him. I hope Cindy remembers to feed him though. I gave him his breakfast but that can’t be enough to hold him over the whole day. But then again all he seems to do is sleep, so maybe it is. I wonder how much a kitten needs to eat every-‘_

                CRASH!!!

                “What was that?!” Sabbath asked aloud. Turning in the direction of the sound, she began jogging down the street towards it.  The crashes got louder, as well as the sound of people screaming, metal being crushed, and…roaring? Coming around the corner at the far end of the street, bits of glass and concrete crunched under her sneakers and Sabbath finally saw the cause of all the noise. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Standing not 15’ away from her was a monster. That was the only word for it. It was a giant rock monster. It looked like some sculptor’s nightmare come to life. It was a blocky, ugly, living stone statue, and it had to be over two stories tall.

                People were rushing past Sabbath, screaming in terror and dodging what appeared to be chunks of buildings and cars. The monster roared as it punched and tore down buildings and threw cars. Some people would pause in their panic and scream at Sabbath to run, but she was frozen in shock. What was this? Statues didn’t come to life; there was no such thing as monsters. Was she dreaming? This didn’t feel like her usual nightmares. But then Sabbath spotted something that made her snap out of her reverie.

An elderly couple was fleeing from their car as fast as they could, but Sabbath feared it wouldn’t be quick enough. Forgetting about hiding her abilities, Sabbath acted on impulse. Quickly pulling her sweatshirt off and tying it securely around her waist, she stretched out her wings and took off into the air. Luckily the monster had its back to her, its attention directed at the fleeing elderly couple. Sabbath took advantage of this and flew up behind the monster’s van-sized head. She’d been eating an apple earlier that afternoon, and had saved the seeds in her pocket. She wanted to see if she could make an apple tree grow in the backyard of her new house, as a sort of thank-you gift for her new stepparents. But suddenly, Sabbath had a much better idea for the seeds.

She had noticed that the monster had small crevices where its ears should have been. Not wasting any time, Sabbath reached into her pocket and pulled out the five apple seeds. Reaching around the monster’s head Sabbath quickly hurled the seeds into the monster’s right “ear”. She closed her eyes, extended her palms out towards the monster and concentrated with all her might, trying to force the seeds to grow into a tree (the most she’d managed in the past was a pumpkin, but even that had required water. Without water, she feared this would take a lot more energy). But just when she’d felt the seeds begin to grow, she heard a voice from the ground to her right call out, “Hey, blockhead!!”

The monster’s attention now diverted from the elderly couple’s car (the couple had by now fled the scene), it quickly turned its head to the right to investigate the source of the shout. Unfortunately, it still hadn’t noticed Sabbath’s presence, and its huge head smacked right into her and knocked her back a couple feet. She just barely managed to keep herself in the air, but then something else hit her from the direction of the voice with even more force. It pushed her right back into the creatures head, but the force of the second blow was so strong it caused her to ricochet off the giant rock’s skull and sent her sailing through the air towards the ground. The last thing she remembered was crashing into something hard that crunched under her, and then everything went black.

 

* * *

 


	3. An Awkward First Impression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 2 of my OC Teen Titans Fanfic, The Second Curse. If you have not done so, please read the Prologue first, and then Chapter 1. Note: there is no First Curse; this is not a sequel to anything. Hope you enjoy! : )

“Where should I put her?”

                “The couch is fine, since you don’t look like you can carry her any further than that. And why are you whispering?”

                “Do you want her to wake up??”

                “She’s unconscious; of course we want her to wake up. Careful, don’t drop-!’

* _thump_!*

                “Good thing the couch was there! I told you to let me carry her!”

                “No way, dude! You always get to carry the girls!”

                “What are you talking about? What girls have I ever carried?”

                “Would you two knock it off and try to focus here?”

                *Gasp* “I think she is awakening!”

                Awakening wasn’t quite the word for it. Sabbath’s consciousness was returning, and she vaguely heard voices around her, but she didn’t open her eyes. She had barely moved, but since the feeling in most of her body had yet to return, moving was difficult. But what parts of her body she could feel, she knew were injured. The hottest of the pain seemed to be coming from her back and her left shoulder, as well as her pounding head.  A grimace of pain crossed her face. Suddenly, the pain in her back became too much too bear. She realized she was laying on her injury and instinctively sat up to relieve the pressure. Sitting up was a bad idea. Her dark eyes shot open with the sudden pain that coursed through her torso. Also, the sudden light didn’t help her headache. Putting her right arm out behind her for support, she gently raised her left hand to her head. The motion irritated her shoulder, but her hand was surprisingly cool against her forehead.

                “Uhg…” Sabbath muttered, her tongue feeling heavy. “I feel like I was hit by a ton of bricks…”

                “Pretty much,” chimed a voice somewhere to her left.

                ‘ _Wait, a voice?’_ though Sabbath. Then she remembered the other voices she’d heard just before she “awoke”. Suddenly putting two and two together, Sabbath realized that voices meant she wasn’t alone. But she’d been alone before she passed out…

                Quickly dropping her hand from her eyes, Sabbath saw several oddly dressed people standing around her. They were looking down at her, which meant she was still on the ground. But when she looked down, she realized she was lying on a sofa. Sofas don’t go outside. But this wasn’t her house, and she definitely didn’t recognize these people.

                “Where…am I?” Sabbath managed to ask. She was still a little out of it. “Who are you?”

                A dark-haired boy in a mask stepped forward. “You’re at Titans’ Tower. How badly are you injured? We would’ve taken you to the hospital, but…”

                “But we figured you’d need more specialized medical treatment,” said a girl in a blue cape, vaguely gesturing in Sabbath’s direction.

                “And we have the facilities here to treat you. Plus, since it was us that hurt you, we kinda figured we owed ya…” said a tall, well-muscled half-robot boy.

                “’ _We_ ’ hurt her?” said a green boy, raising an eyebrow and turning to face the robot-boy.

                “ _I_ hurt you,” said the robot-boy. He was facing her, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. “But _you_ dropped her!” He continued, turning to meet the green boy’s glare.

                “I did not!”

                “You got a twin I don’t know about?”

                “Please, you require medical attention,” said a tall redhead, ignoring the two fighting boys. “Let us assist you as soon as possible! We shall repair your injuries at once!”

                Sabbath just stared at them. “Specialized” treatment? “Titans Tower”? She’d never seen these people before in her life, how could they possibly have hurt her? The last thing she remembered was trying to save an elderly couple from a giant rock monster. The rest was a bit fuzzy, but she assumed the creature was responsible for her injuries. Although, the robot-boy’s voice DID sound somewhat familiar. Where had she heard it before?

                The pain in her back quickly distracted her from her train of thought. How badly _was_ she injured? Carefully, Sabbath turned to look over her shoulder, expecting to see some kind of weapon protruding from her back. Relieved to see no axes or spears, Sabbath breathed a small sigh of relief. Then she noticed her left wing hung suspiciously limp, and her worry returned. She turned her attention to her right wing, and luckily it seemed alright. She slowly flexed it, stretched out to full length, then folded it back up against her back. It was a little scraped and bruised, but at least she could lift it. Wait, wings? She wasn’t at home, her wings shouldn’t be exposed! Glancing down at her waist, she saw her sweatshirt still tied there and her eyes grew wide with horror. She glanced back up at the people around her. They didn’t seem disturbed by her appearance, but still. Sabbath had always made a point to never expose her wings in public. Ever since that day at the group home…

                She had to leave. Now. Injuries or no injuries, she had to get out of there.

                “Um, thanks for everything, but I really should be going,” Sabbath said as she tried to stand. Unfortunately, she was only able to take two steps before she became dizzy and lost her balance. The masked boy caught her in his arms as she fell and steadied her on her feet.

                “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said, embracing her at arm’s length; a look of concern clearly recognizable on his face even though his eyes were hidden. “At least let Raven take a look at you.”

                “’Raven?’” Asked Sabbath.

                The girl in the blue cape walked over with one arm outstretched; her hand giving off a light blue glow. Sabbath flinched slightly, not knowing what to expect.

                “It’s alright; I’m just going to see how bad your injuries are. I might even be able to heal them completely. Just hold still,” Raven said. Slowly, she ran her hand over Sabbath’s neck and shoulders, then over her arms, all the while keeping just an inch or two above her skin. Surprisingly, it was soothing. The soft, cool glow from Raven’s hand did seem to be healing the scrapes and bruises, and her headache subsided. It also numbed what Sabbath suspected couldn’t be totally healed. However, when Raven got to Sabbath’s left wing, she frowned and Sabbath winced, expecting disgust or rejection.

                “What?” asked Sabbath cautiously.

                “You broke a major bone here on the upper part. I can’t fix it entirely. We’ll have to set it…somehow…but I doubt you’ll be able to use it for at least two weeks.”

                Two weeks? That wasn’t good. Sabbath glanced over the masked boy’s shoulder and out the floor-to-ceiling bay window.it was dark out, but it hadn’t been before. If it was dark out, it was probably close to 6:30. Sabbath knew she’d never make it home in time on foot; but without the use of her wings, she’d have to walk (only at night did Sabbath make an exception to her no-wings-in-public rule).

                ‘ _Crap!’_ thought Sabbath. ‘ _I’d better call the Millers and let them know I might be late.’_

Sabbath reached into her left pocket for her cellphone, but what she pulled out was in two pieces with a cracked screen and a busted battery. Great, she killed her new cell, broke her wing, AND she was going to miss curfew. Could this day get any better?

                Just then, lightning flashed outside, and Sabbath noticed it was pouring rain. Great. But maybe it was just the storm making the sky dark; maybe she wouldn’t be late at all!

                “Um, does anyone know what time it is?” Sabbath asked, glancing at the people around her.

                The half-robot boy glanced down at his arm, then back at her and said, “It’s about 7:15. Why?”

                Sabbath felt her heart sink. “I was supposed to be home 45 minutes ago. I really need to get going,” she said, and thunder boomed overhead.

                The masked boy glanced at the half-robot boy, who then left the room as the green one said with a grin, “you’re not going anywhere until we fix that wing. We owe ya, remember?”

                Could these people be any creepier? Sabbath really wanted to leave. Between the thunder storm and the weird-looking teens, this was beginning to look like something out of a horror movie. Then again, they _were_ helping her. Maybe it was just the unfamiliar setting, along with having her wings exposed to strangers, that was setting her nerves on edge. So far these people hadn’t really given her any reason to fear them, except for when they said they were the ones that had hurt her, which still didn’t make any sense.

                “Well…alright. But you still haven’t really told me what’s going on, or who you are,” Sabbath said.

                “We’re the Teen Titans,” said the masked boy.

“So are you guys, like, superheroes or something?” Sabbath asked. Did superheroes exist outside of comic books?

“Yes. My name is Robin. You-“

“Wait, ‘Robin’?” Sabbath asked. “As in Batm-“

“YES.” Robin replied, cutting her off. His eyes narrowed slightly.

“O…K,” Sabbath said. The real Robin, as in Boy Wonder, was standing right in front of her, and all she could do was try not to giggle as she compared this boy to her new kitten at home. They were both named Robin, they both had black, puffy hair… She must have really hit her head hard.

“As I was saying,” Robin continued. “You already know Raven,” the girl in the blue cape blinked. “That’s Starfire,” he said, gesturing towards the redhead, who floated towards Sabbath and looked like she was about to hug her, but appeared to change her mind at the last second and just smiled and waved awkwardly. “And that’s Beast Boy,” Robin finished. Beast Boy gave a deep bow, then looked up at Sabbath and said, “Nice to meet you, milady,” with a wink and a big, cheesy grin. His smile was contagious, despite the fangs (‘ _a green vampire…?’_ she wondered to herself), and Sabbath couldn’t help but smile back. He was kind of funny…

                “And I’m Cyborg,” said the robot-boy as he re-entered the room holding a first-aid kit. “Sorry about your wing; the sun was in my eyes, and I swear, I didn’t see ya until it was too late! It all happened so fast…”

                “It’s alright,” Sabbath replied with a small smile, “I’ve lived through worse.” It was a lie, Sabbath had never really been in too many fights before, but what else could she say? He really did seem to feel terrible about what happened. “But what happened, exactly? Last I remember is being hit by something, then crashing into something else…and then waking up here.”

                “We got a report that Cinderblock was causing trouble, so we went to take him down,” Robin said.

                “’Cinderblock?’”

                “The big ugly rock dude,” Beast Boy explained.

                “While the others went to attack from the front, I snuck up behind him,” Cyborg continued. “I shot him in the head with my net cannon, but instead of hitting him, the net hit you instead. You must’ve been right in my line of fire. You hit the back of his head, and then crash landed on a minivan. You sorta landed on your side, which is probably how your wing and shoulder got messed up.”

                “But look on the bright side; when you hit Cinderblock, you knocked him off balance. Once he fell, we took him down easy! So, way to go!” Beast Boy said, giving a thumbs up.

                “Um, thanks?” Sabbath said, unsure how to respond to that.

                “You were unconscious when we got to you,” Raven said. “We would’ve treated your injuries there, but it was starting to rain.”

                “Oh…”

                “Now hold still and put your arms up,” said Cyborg.

                “What?!”

                “You can’t put a cast on a wing, so we gotta set it straight and bind it tight.” Cyborg explained.

                “This might hurt just a little,” said Raven, who had suddenly appeared behind Sabbath. As Sabbath put her arms out, Raven quickly, with hands aglow, snapped the bone back in place and folded the wing up against Sabbath’s back, and Cyborg wrapped gauze around Sabbath’s entire torso, keeping both her wings firmly in place.

                Sabbath instinctively pulled her arms down to her sides and had just opened her mouth to cry out in pain (“Just a little”?! Understatement of the century!), when suddenly Starfire was in front of her, forcing a spoon into her mouth. “Taste,” she said. As if she had a choice. Whatever Starfire had just fed her was sticky and she couldn’t dislodge it from the roof of her mouth, so she couldn’t help but taste it. It tasted like a mix of sour milk, gravy, mustard, pineapple, and fish.

                “GYAAHHH!!” Sabbath yelled, the combination of pain and disgust completely disorienting her.

                “Are you in pain?” Starfire asked.

                “WHAT IS THIS?! DEATH PEANUT BUTTER?!” Sabbath replied around the sticky glob in her mouth, mentally ordering herself to not throw up.

                “The displeasing taste is designed to distract you from your physical discomfort. You do not feel any pain, correct?”

                “No…” Sabbath replied, having finally gotten the stuff out of her mouth. Although her eyes were still watering, she had long since forgotten the pain in her wing. “I’m…fine.”

                “Wonderful!” beamed Starfire.

                “Sorry about that,” said Robin. “But if we told you it was coming, it wouldn’t have worked.”

                Sabbath wanted to argue with him, but she couldn’t; she knew he was right. “Well…thank you all, for everything. But I really have to get going. As it is my parents are probably worried sick about me. So, if someone could just point me towards the way out of here, I’ll be-“

                *BOOOM!! CRACK!!*

                Thunder clashed overhead, immediately followed by a flash of blue lightning. The wind picked up and was pelting the bay window with rain. The flash of lightning gave Sabbath a glimpse of the world outside, and she realized she was looking at an unfamiliar part of the city.

                “You’re not walking home, are you?” Beast Boy asked, also looking out into the storm.

                “Of course she is not! We shall escort her through this storm in the T-vehicle!”

                Sabbath really wanted the ride (she hoped the “T-vehicle” was a car of some kind. Perhaps “T” stood for “truck”?), since she didn’t know where her house was from there, but she didn’t want to impose on these people any more than she already had, so she said, “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that.”

                “But it’s pouring rain out there,” Robin said.

                “I should be able to keep a water shield up long enough to get home.”

                “You mean an umbrella?” Cyborg asked.

                “No. I can call water to me, so I should be able to keep it away as well. Besides, water is one of my weak points and I could use the practice.” Sabbath replied. She really hoped she wouldn’t have to sit here and explain all of her abilities. That would take too long and she was already late. It had to be past 8 o’clock by now. She was so dead.

                “’One of your weak points’?” Robin asked. “What else can you do?”

                Sabbath sighed. “It’s a long story, and it’s easier to show than to tell. And I really don’t mean to be so rude after you all have been so kind, but it’s super late and my parents are gonna call in the National Guard if I’m not home soon, so…”

                “We understand,” said Cyborg. “But can you at least tell us your name?”

                “Oh, yeah, sorry,” Sabbath replied, realizing she still hadn’t introduced herself. “It’s Jane. Jane Hellingsworth.” Rather than tell them her legal name and explain that she preferred to be called something else, Sabbath decided to just tell them ‘Jane’ was her name to avoid having to answer any more awkward, tiresome questions.

                “Well, it was nice to meet you, Jane Hellingsworth,” Robin said with a smile, offering her his hand. Awkward, yet professional.

                “It was nice to meet you, too,” Sabbath said, briefly shaking his hand. “All of you. Thanks for everything!”

                “We will meet again in the near future, yes?” Starfire asked.

                “I’m sure you’ll see me around,” Sabbath replied with a smile and friendly wave as she backed towards what she hoped was the door.

                “I’ll walk you out!” Beast boy said eagerly. Gently taking hold of her right arm, he guided her towards the door opposite the one she’d been heading towards.

Sabbath waved goodbye to the rest of the Titans, and once she and Beast Boy were out of the room she said, “Thanks.”

“Yeah, I figured you didn’t know the way out since you were backing towards the storage room,” Beast Boy said, grinning.

The two came to an elevator, and Beast Boy pushed the down button. It opened immediately. Once they were both inside, Beast Boy pushed the button for the ground level. As the elevator car slowly descended, Beast Boy turned to Sabbath and asked, “So where are you from? You must be new here if you’ve never heard of the amazing Teen Titans.” He struck a pose, and Sabbath couldn’t help but giggle (the tight gauze around her chest only somewhat restricting her breathing).

“My…parents and I just moved here from Boston,” she replied. Sheepishly she continued, “We’ve only been in this city for a couple days, and to be honest, I have no idea how to get home from here.”

“Why didn’t you want us to give you a lift home?”

“I didn’t want to ask for any favors. You’d already done more than enough for me by healing my wounds. I figured I’d stop at a gas station, use their phone, and have my parents come pick me up. No big deal.”

“What if I walk you home? I know this city like the back of my hand!” Beast Boy said with a proud smile.

“You’d do that for someone you just met?”

“It’s my duty as a Titan to protect the city and its citizens, or at least that’s what Robin says,” Beast Boy said. “But even if it weren’t, I feel like I know you from somewhere. Something about you seems familiar...” Just then, the elevator reached its destination. With a soft * _ping!*_ the doors opened to reveal a vast garage. Inside there was a red motorcycle, a big blue and white car, and various car parts and tools. Directly across from the elevator was the wide garage door that Sabbath assumed the vehicles came and went through. On the side wall there was a smaller door which was probably the one for people.

Once they reached the door, Sabbath asked, “You sure you want to walk me home? I’m not sure how far it is from here…”

“Definitely,” Beast Boy said. “Where do you live?”

“I’m not sure of the address, but I know it’s two blocks from the high school. But I think once we get to the school, I’ll know the way from there.”

“Which high school?”

“Um, the cheap public one?” Sabbath offered, hoping that would help. She hadn’t realized there was more than one high school in the city, but considering the size of it, it would have to contain multiple schools.

“Ok, I think I know which one you mean. Let’s go!” Beast boy said, heading out the door.

Sabbath took a minute to pull her sweatshirt on (her shield couldn’t block the cold) and focus her energy before stepping out into the storm. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Soon, a transparent blue dome appeared over her. It started a foot over her head and went all the way to the ground. Opening her eyes, she realized she’d have to make it big enough for two. Sabbath pushed her arms out on either side of her, forcing the dome to widen. Hoping she could keep it up long enough, she called out to Beast Boy to join her under it. He hesitated at first, unsure as to whether or not he could walk through it. Not wanting to waste any time, Sabbath reached out from under the dome, grabbed Beast Boy’s arm, and pulled him in.

“Gyah!” Beast Boy cried out in alarm, afraid he’d hit a solid wall (after all, Raven’s force fields were solid to everyone except Raven herself). But instead, he slid through the barrier with no trouble at all. The dome seemed to give off a deep blue, flickering glow, which upon closer inspection Beast Boy realized was caused by the rain. Each drop that bounced off the force field caused it to briefly light up where the water had touched it.

Sabbath watched with curiosity and amusement as Beast Boy slowly stretched one hand out of the force field. Sure enough, he could feel the pouring rain beginning to soak his gloved hand. Pulling his hand back into the dome, he was shocked to see it dry right before his eyes. As his hand slid through the barrier, the rain was pulled off of it; leaving his hand bone dry. Looking down at himself, Beast Boy realized he should be at least somewhat wet from the seconds he spent in the rain- but he wasn’t. He hadn’t even noticed before when the barrier had pulled all the water off of him as he’d entered. He checked his hands, arms, and hair, but it seemed like he’d never gotten wet in the first place.

“Wow…” Beast Boy whispered in awe.

Sabbath smiled, not used to that sort of response to her abilities. Usually people screamed, ran, yelled at her, threw crucifixes, or all of the above (one foster parent a couple years ago had actually fainted).

Suddenly, the moment was shattered as lightning cracked overhead, swiftly followed by an earth-shaking roll of thunder. With that, the street lights, as well as the lights in all the houses on the entire street, simultaneously went black. Sabbath jumped, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught Beast Boy shooting a nervous glance towards the sky.

“We’d better get going,” Sabbath said. “This thing only protects against water, not lightning.”

Not needing to be told twice, Beast Boy nodded and began walking quickly down the dark sidewalk, with Sabbath having to practically jog to keep up with him. The dark blue glow from the dome was dim, but it was better than nothing. Sabbath briefly considered creating a flame in her hand to better light the way, but decided against it when she realized it was better to focus all of her energy on the water shield.

After about 15 minutes of walking, Sabbath and Beast Boy finally arrived at the public high school. Luckily, this block had power, so the street lights were on.

“So…where do we go from here?” Beast Boy asked, glancing over at Sabbath.

Sabbath looked around a bit, trying to get her bearings. _‘It’s strange how things can look so different at night,’_ she though. Looking to her right, she recognized a couple houses. There was that big grey house with the two different kinds of fences, the short green house with a fire hydrant in front of it, the white house with the stone wall…

“This way!” she said, pointing towards the familiar neighborhood. Once her house was in sight, Sabbath quickened her pace, this time leaving Beast Boy scurrying to keep up. Finally, the two were standing in front of a yellow and white 3-story Victorian.

“This…is your house?” Beast Boy said in amazement, gazing up at the house. It was nothing compared to Titans’ Tower, of course, but it was the biggest house on the block.

“Yep,” said Sabbath, with an equal amount of awe. _‘Until they decide to kick me out…’_ she thought.

Shaking off her cloud of self-pity, Sabbath realized Beast Boy had turned his gaze from the house to her. “Thanks for walking me home, Beast Boy. It was really nice to meet you, but I’d better get inside before they release the hounds,” she said to Beast Boy with a smile. He laughed.

“Um, I can’t keep this shield up for you on your way back,” she continued. “Want me to grab you an umbrella? There should be one inside under the coat rack…”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Beast Boy replied. Then with a grin he continued, “Check this out.” Suddenly, there was a green dog standing where Beast Boy had just been. It barked at Sabbath with its tongue hanging out, and if dogs could smile Sabbath would’ve sworn that’s what this one was doing.

“Wow…” Sabbath said in awe, much as he had done when he first saw her water shield. She crouched down a bit (as much as the tight bandages around her waist and chest would allow) to be closer to eye level with the dog, “Heh, guess that’s why they call you Beast Boy?”

The dog barked again, as if in agreement. Then, without warning, the dog jumped up on its hind legs and licked the side of Sabbath’s face. She recoiled and wiped at her face, laughing. ‘ _If he weren’t a dog, that would’ve been really inappropriate,’_ she thought. When she looked down again, the dog was already at the next house. As if sensing her gaze, it stopped and turned to look at her. Taking shelter under her neighbor’s huge oak tree, the dog shook itself off before becoming a boy again. Beast Boy waved to Sabbath and called out, “Come visit us once that wing’s healed!” Sabbath flinched at his announcing her wings to the entire neighborhood, but considering how late it was and how bad the storm was, she doubted anyone was standing outside eavesdropping.

“Will do!” she called back, yelling to be heard over the downpour. Sabbath waved good-bye to Beast Boy, who then resumed his canine form and ran back down the street the way they’d come.

Sabbath entered the house with a smile in her face. Her happiness lasted all of five seconds until the Millers walked into the foyer, having heard the door shut. They immediately began the “do-you-have-any-idea-what-time-it-is-we-were-so-worried-about-you-why-didn’t-you-call-you-are-so-grounded” lecture. Sabbath didn’t bother explaining about the rock monster or the strange people she’d met, and luckily her sweatshirt hid the bandages wrapped around her torso. She told them she’d gone to the library and lost track of time. As for the broken cellphone (and the apparent eight million missed calls), Sabbath explained that she’d turned her phone off when she got to the library. Once she realized how late it was she ran out of the library and had pulled her phone out of her pocket once she was outside, but had tripped and fallen, dropping the phone. She apologized to her stepparents and reached into her pocket to produce the broken phone for evidence, but it wasn’t there. _‘Crap!’_ she thought. _‘I must’ve dropped it during the whole bandage-and-death-peanut-butter-torture thing…’_ Quickly trying to cover up the hole in her story, Sabbath explained that the phone was so damaged that she must’ve thrown it out, knowing it couldn’t be repaired. She said she must not have been thinking clearly in her mad rush to get home and she was very sorry. When asked who gave her a ride home, since she didn’t look like she’d just run through a storm, Sabbath could finally give an honest answer (leaving out the shape-shifter), though they probably would’ve preferred a lie. The Millers were very Catholic, and so were a bit uncomfortable with the idea of their new daughter having power over the elements. Talking about her abilities to the Millers was like talking to them about her menstrual cycle. Feeling a bit awkward, they decided to just wrap up the conversation by sending her to her room without dinner. It was an old-fashioned and usually useless punishment, seeing as Sabbath could just wait until the Millers fell asleep and raid the fridge, but considering the day she’d had and the fact that she’d only had an apple for lunch, Sabbath wished they’d grounded her for the rest of spring break instead.

However, not having the energy to argue, Sabbath walked up the stairs to her room on the third floor. Turning on the light and closing the door behind her, she looked around for a box labeled “CLOTHES”. Finally finding a pair of pajamas, she tossed them on her bed. Throwing her sweatshirt over the nearest box, she proceeded to carefully peel off the bandage from around her chest and stomach. It was difficult, but she knew she couldn’t ask the Millers for help. It’d be too awkward for them and too hard for her to explain how she’d gotten so hurt at the library. Cutting slits in the back of her shirts had been necessary to accommodate her wings, but she’d never expected to have to work around a broken one. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. First, she carefully pulled the shirt over her head (which surprisingly didn’t hurt her shoulder, thanks to Raven), and then allowed her right wing to go as limp as the left one so the shirt could fall free with ease.

Now she had to figure out a way to put the bandage back on by herself. Sabbath was about to just forget the whole bandage thing when she noticed her closet door was open and an idea came to her. Tying her long, dark hair up in a bun, she shut one end of the bandage in the door and held the other end firmly over her heart. Holding her broken wing in place with her free hand, she slowly spun towards the closet door, winding the bandage around her torso. Once she was finished, she clipped the bandage in place with the small metal clasp that had held it before.

_‘There,’_ she thought. _‘That wasn’t so bad.’_ With that, Sabbath pulled on her nightshirt, traded her dusty (yet miraculously un-ripped) jeans for her favorite pajama shorts, and turned out the lights. Sabbath crawled into bed; laying on her side so as not to aggravate her injuries. Once under the covers, she nearly screamed when her foot hit something warm and soft, but she relaxed when she realized it was just her kitten. Reaching under the blanket, she pulled the little fluff ball up to her face.

“You’ll never guess who I met today, Robin,” she whispered with a smile to the purring kitten as she petted him. He carefully sniffed her face and backed up, as if detecting all she’d been through that day. That and she remembered her face had been licked by a dog not 20 minutes ago. Giggling at the little critter’s disgust, she let him go, though he didn’t go far. Finding a comfortable place behind her knees, he circled two or three times before curling up and falling asleep almost instantly.

Too tired to even think about getting up in a couple hours to raid the fridge, Sabbath promised herself she’d have a huge breakfast in the morning instead, as well as a hot shower. As she closed her eyes, she let her mind drift back to the people she’d met today. The ‘Teen Titans’, they called themselves. They didn’t look like the mighty beasts of the gods, not even teenage versions, but she knew looks could be deceiving. They didn’t act like mighty beasts either, though. But, she figured they wouldn’t assume a name like that without reason. ‘ _I’ll see them again,’_ she told herself. ‘ _Once my wing’s healed, I’ll go back and maybe get to know them. They saw me as I am and didn’t seem frightened or disgusted; Beast Boy even seemed to like me! Who knows, maybe I’ll finally have some real friends?’_


	4. A Redundant Scene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 3 of my OC Teen Titans Fanfic, The Second Curse. If you have not done so, please read the Prologue first, and then the chapters that precede this one. Note: there is no First Curse; this is not a sequel to anything. Hope you enjoy! : )

* * *

 

 

*BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP*

The day had come at last. Sabbath knew there was no stopping it, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t run away from it. However, with her foster parents between her and the front door, she had no choice. Spring Break was over, and today was her first day at her new high school. True, it was her fourth new high school this year, but that didn’t make it any less painful. If anything, that just made things worse.

Rolling over with an angry sigh, Sabbath reached out to her nightstand and turned off her alarm. She got out of bed and slowly stretched her arms and back. It had been a little over a week since her encounter with the rock monster and the Teen Titans, and her injuries seemed to be healing faster than she’d expected (not that she was complaining). She no longer needed the bandage to hold her wing in place while it healed, though she still couldn’t bring herself to actually fly with it; it wasn’t broken anymore, but it wasn’t completely healed either. Sabbath figured she’d be able to use it again by Sunday, but considering today was Monday, Sunday may as well have been an eternity away.

Pushing her dark, curly hair out of her eyes, Sabbath blearily stumbled across her bedroom to the attached bathroom, going through her morning routine automatically. When she was all washed and dressed, with her hair straightened and make-up applied, she grabbed her backpack, purse, and sweatshirt and set out down the stairs towards the kitchen, still in the same dark mood she’d woken up in.

She set her bags and hoodie on the table and walked to the fridge. Sabbath was the only person in the kitchen, since the Millers were running about getting themselves ready for the day. She had a feeling she wouldn’t see them until it was time to leave, since they’d explained to her the night before that they felt they should drive her to school at least for the first couple of days to “make sure she made it there alright”. The Millers never seemed to totally buy her story about the library, and instead made up a different scenario in their minds. They’d convinced themselves she was mugged on her way home, which is how she lost her cellphone and why she was late coming home. They decided this somehow proved her to be incapable of traveling to and from school on her own. Parent logic, go figure.

                As she sat herself at the kitchen table with a glass of orange juice, Sabbath stared at the ugly, floral centerpiece on the table (‘ _who puts kiwi fruits in a bouquet?’_ she asked herself) and began hoping her stepparents had forgotten about wanting to give her a ride to school. Maybe they’d leave without her and she could just go back to bed and pretend this whole day never-

“Sabbath?!!” her stepmother called from somewhere in the house. “Come on sweetie, it’s time to get going!”

Sabbath ground her teeth together and really considered setting the centerpiece on fire. Somehow, she felt it would make her feel better. But she managed to keep her composure, her fingernails nearly cutting into her palms with the effort. Giving the centerpiece one last dirty look, she tucked her wings tightly against her back - with only a minor twinge of a complaint from the left one- and pulled on her sweatshirt. Grabbing her bags off the counter, she stormed off towards the foyer where she found her stepmother waiting.

“Did you feed Robin this morning?” Sabbath asked while checking her bag, making sure she had everything she needed.

“Your father’s feeding him, dear,” Mrs. Miller replied.

_‘He’s NOT my father,’_ she almost replied. The only thing that stopped her was the fact that Mr. Miller walked into the foyer at exactly that moment, so she just let it go. She really was in an awful mood today; most likely due to nerves and stress.

“Are we all ready to go?” Mr. Miller asked with a smile. With muttered agreements, they all stepped out the door and Mr. Miller locked it behind them. The three of them piled into the family minivan and set off towards the public high school, which was only about two or three blocks down the street. Mr. Miller stopped the van in front of the school.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to walk you in the first day?” Mrs. Miller asked.

“Yes…Mom…I’m very sure,” Sabbath replied. She hated to refer to the Millers as Mom and Dad, but it made them happy.

“Alrighty then,” said Mr. Miller. “Now remember our deal…”

“Yes, I know,” Sabbath said. “I make Principle’s List and go to Church with you on Sundays, and you don’t make me go to Catholic school.”

“That’s right,” replied Mr. Miller.

“We love you Sabbath! Make us proud, sweetie.”

“Love you too, and I will,” Sabbath said, sliding the van’s door open and climbing out. Before they could say anything else, she slid the door shut and waved at them before making a hasty retreat into the front doors of the high school.

Inside the school, students everywhere were talking, yelling, and rushing around, trying to get their books and meet up with boyfriends or girlfriends before the tardy bell rang. The hallway smelled like three different kinds of perfume and two different kinds of cologne. It was so crowded that Sabbath could barely make out any lockers, never mind any helpful signs that said things like “New Kids This Way”, or even “New Sophomore Office”. All she could see was that the hallway seemed to branch off up ahead. Most students were going down the hallway to the left, so she assumed that’s where the classrooms were and headed down the hallway to the right, hoping to find some kind of offices.

Sure enough, the school’s main office was at the end of the hall, along with what looked like private offices. Sabbath figured that even if the main office wasn’t where she needed to be, they’d at least be able to point her in the right direction.

Sabbath stepped into the office and was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of stale B.O. Lovely. There were two sad-looking students sitting in plastic chairs next to a door in the back of the office. Sabbath assumed that was the principal’s office, and briefly wondered what those kids could’ve done on the first day back from vacation to get in trouble already. Turning to her right, Sabbath saw the secretary’s desk. She walked up to it and the smell seemed to increase. Behind the desk sat an androgynous, overweight secretary, who was typing lazily on a computer, not bothering to look up.

“Um…” Sabbath said, trying to get the secretary’s attention, but knowing if ‘Sir’ or ‘Miss’ was more appropriate. The secretary seemed not to hear her. Sabbath cleared her throat and tried again.

“Excuse me?” asked Sabbath, a little louder this time. Still no response. What did it take with this woman…or…man…or…whatever. Sabbath was growing frustrated, this…person’s rude attitude not helping her already sour mood. She was about to burst the sprinklers overhead when the secretary spoke up in a voice that was quite clearly worn down by decades of smoking, heavy smoking, although it still gave no hint as to the gender of its owner.

“Name?” croaked the secretary, still not looking up from her computer.

“Sabbath, Sabbath Hellingsworth.”

After a few more moments of typing and clicking, the ancient printer behind the secretary gave a few short screeches before it managed to belch out a piece of paper. The secretary took it and handed it to Sabbath without making eye contact and muttered, “You’re late to first period,” which was followed by a short, yet powerful round of coughing and hacking. Sabbath took the sheet of paper without even bothering to look at it as she backed out of the office.

“Um, thanks…” Sabbath mumbled, wondering how much longer she could stand the stench. Finally, she turned and flat-out ran back down the hall the way she came. Once she got back to the fork in the hall near the front entrance, she took a minute to stop and look at the paper she’d been given. The hallway was vacant now, so the secretary must be right, Sabbath was officially late to her first class. But maybe this was a good thing, maybe they’d already started class without her and wouldn’t want to stop and introduce her. With a small glimmer of hope in her heart, Sabbath looked down at the paper. The ink was really light and splotchy, which made it hard to read, but she could make out the gist of it. It was a chart of her schedule for each day of the week. She glanced at the Monday column, first period is…

“Gym?!” Sabbath exclaimed. _‘Oh this is so not good…’_

Ten minutes later Sabbath found herself in front of the double doors that lead into the gymnasium. There had been no school map attached to her schedule, and this school didn’t seem to believe in guiding signs, so she’d had to walk all around the school on her own, muttering curses the entire time. Needless to say, she was less than cheerful by the time she reached the gym. Her frustration had long since overpowered her anxiety. Taking a moment to cool down before she caused something bad to happen, Sabbath took a deep breath before yanking open the doors and walking into the gym with her head held high.

And she thought the office had smelled bad. That place was a flower shop compared to this. And not only did it smell, but the windows were dirty, the floors and walls were scuffed, the bleachers were rusty, one of the two basketball hoops was cracked (though the students seemed to be using it anyway), and one light kept flickering on and off. The class itself looked small, although it was hard to tell since they were running around playing what looked like a mix of basketball and dodge ball, sending the sound of squeaky sneakers echoing around the gymnasium. Sabbath spotted the teacher standing off to the side, blowing his whistle every so often and yelling for no apparent reason. He had thinning hair and a beer belly, and he seemed really angry. Yikes. But on the bright side, there didn’t seem to be a uniform.

Not giving herself time to change her mind and walk back out, Sabbath stalked right up to the teacher and introduced herself.

“Hi, sorry I’m late. My name is Sabbath Helling-“

“YOU’RE LATE!” the teacher said, angrily turning to Sabbath as if she were some annoying pest and not his student.

“Um, yes, and I’m sorry,” Sabbath tried to continue, somewhat taken aback by his sudden outburst. “But today’s my first day here. I got sort of lost and-“

“Ahhh…THE NEW GIRL HUH? THEY TOLD ME YOUS WAS COMIN’,” boomed the teacher. He had to have the loudest conversational tone Sabbath had ever heard, and he was clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer. By now the entire class had stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to Sabbath and the teacher.

“Hey coach, who’s that?” a boy in the class called out. Sabbath looked over at him. He looked tall, athletic, and had brown, mid-length hair. His eyes weren’t too bad either.

_‘Not bad at all,’_ thought Sabbath.

“NEW GIRL!!” the teacher hollered back, and the class went back to what they’d been doing before. Sabbath flinched. The boy gave her a sort of sympathetic smile and turned back to the game.

“NOW,” continued the coach. “GO GET CHANGED; LOCKER ROOM’S BACK THATAWAY,” he said, pointing towards a short, dark hallway off the back of the gymnasium.

“But I didn’t bring a change of clothes. I didn’t even know I had this class until I got here and-“

“I DON’T TOLERATE SLACKERS IN MAH CLASS!! PICK SOMETHIN OUTTA THE LOST N’ FOUND AND BE BACK HERE IN FIVE!” With that, he turned back to the class and continued to yell and blow his whistle.

Feeling defeated, Sabbath just stared at the floor as she walked back towards the locker room. Pushing open the creaking door to the girls’ locker room, she was instantly overwhelmed by the smell of multiple kinds of deodorant, dirty bathrooms, and mildew. Sabbath looked around and felt her spirits plummet. On her left was an open doorway that led to a few bathroom stalls, and set up throughout the room were several rickety set of lockers; but worst of all, to her right was a moldy group shower.

_‘First of all; eww. Second, no way in hell,’_ thought Sabbath. She wasn’t sure which idea frightened her more; showering with a bunch of strangers, or exposing her wings to a bunch of strangers.

Next to the entrance to the group shower, Sabbath found the “Lost N’ Found” bin. Peering inside she found an incredibly small, white t-shirt, incredibly huge sweatpants, a dead spider, and one sneaker.

_‘Great,’_ she thought. ‘ _Now what?’_. Looking around, Sabbath could only see one way out of the locker room, and that lead back to the gym. So much for running away. Looking around the room, hoping for another way out, she got an idea. It was childish, and probably a little clichéd, but she was desperate.  _‘But I can’t do it in here, or they’ll think it was me.’_

Sabbath headed back towards the gym. As she walked, she focused on fire. She thought of the smell of burning wood, the roar of a raging fire, and the billowing black smoke; but most of all, she focused on the intense heat. Casually entering the gym, she continued to concentrate. She thought of how heat caused things to expand; how intense heat could cause things to explode, like the water bulbs in sprinklers. She imagined powerful flames materializing around each sprinkler, causing them to crack and burst, the water within them boiling, and-

*CRACK! CRACK CRACK! FSSSHHHHHHHH!!!*

All the sprinklers in the gym popped right off the ceiling, gallons and gallons of pressurized water pouring out of where they’d been. The fire alarm sounded as the useless sprinkler heads clattered to the cement floor.  The bulb in the light over Sabbath’s head had burst as well. Oops; oh well.

Panic overtook the class. The coach was shouting evacuation instructions, but no one needed to be told how to run out screaming. Realizing he wasn’t doing any good, the coach merely pushed his way through the crowd of students, being one of the first to burst through the emergency exit. Sabbath feigned the same panic and followed suit, running out with the rest of the students, all the while wondering if that had all been too much. She’d only meant to set off the sprinklers so she could get out of class, not make them explode off the ceiling. As she ran out, she heard a pipe burst in the gym behind her. Yeah, maybe a bit much. But this way, gym would most likely be cancelled for the rest of the year.

The emergency exit had led out into the back parking lot. Sabbath stood with the rest of her class as the coach was frantically trying to get their attention so he could take attendance. Everyone ignored him, apparently too excited about what had just happened. Sabbath saw the boy brown-haired boy from earlier standing in a small group of equally athletic-looking boys. They seemed to be trying to determine who’d won the game they were playing. A nearby group of girls was discussing whether or not they thought the gym would be fixed in time for prom, and another group of girls, this one mostly blondes, seemed panicked about the questionable cleanliness of the water that had just ruined their hair. That’s when Sabbath remembered her own appearance. Looking down at herself she realized she was soaked. She felt her hair and it, too, was drenched; but worse than that, it was curling. The hot afternoon sun would have everyone dry in no time, but it would also cause intense frizz. At the rate her day was going, Sabbath couldn’t wait to see what second period had in store.

Compared to first period, the rest of the day passed without incident, although it was far from pleasant. Gym class had been cancelled for the rest of the year, since it would take a while to repair all the damage in the gymnasium, so everyone was assigned a study hall that period instead. Unfortunately, due to all the commotion in first period, everyone in that class had been late to second period.

Sabbath’s second period class was health, which was taught by an overly cheerful old woman. When Sabbath got to the class, the teacher had stopped her lecture to introduce her to the class. It was the pretty much the same scenario she’d imagined it would be, with all the awkward questions and explanations. The only things that were different were the two facts that 1.) Sabbath was still partially soaked (and her hair was a frizzy mess), and 2.) There was a large illustration of the male anatomy sketched out on the board behind her. Although it felt like she stood in front of the class for a lifetime, it was only a few short minutes. The teacher then handed her the textbook for the course and Sabbath found her seat. Then the teacher continued on with the lecture, as if Sabbath had never interrupted.

Third period was English, and it went pretty much the same as Health, although by then Sabbath’s clothes had dried and she didn’t have to introduce herself standing in front of a drawing of a crotch. Geometry, history, and biology were more of the same; each with equally massive textbooks. Lunch was a bit uncomfortable, but that was to be expected. Sabbath had been “The New Girl” enough times to know what to expect, so she’d gotten used to sitting alone. She wouldn’t have minded if someone came to sit with her, but, as usual, no one did. It was as if they knew she was hiding some horrible secret. They weren’t exactly frightened of her, but they didn’t exactly like her either. 

It wasn’t until the last period of the day that things seemed to improve. Sabbath had been placed in a music class. She’d never taken any kind of music classes before, and had no idea how to play any musical instruments, but she realized she wanted to learn. After she introduced herself to the class, explaining her lack of musical knowledge, she was handed the text for the course (a thankfully small workbook of sheet music). The teacher then asked her to pick an instrument. He explained to her that his class focused on the concept that, although all instruments are different, they can all make beautiful music. He seemed like a bit of a hippy, but Sabbath decided she liked him. He asked a geeky-looking boy with glasses in the front row to take her to the instrument room so she could pick one out.

“It’s back this way,” said the boy with a tentative smile. He was clearly shy, and his smile was nothing compared to Beast Boy’s...

 “Um…Sabbath?” he said, trying to get her attention. She realized she’d just been standing there like an idiot, but hearing her real name snapped her out of it.

“Yeah, sorry,” she said, finally returning his smile. “And please,” she corrected, for the hundredth time that day, “Call me Jane.”

The boy led her back to the instrument room, beginning to think she was mentally slow. Once inside the room, Sabbath gazed around at all the instruments; everything from flutes to drums to guitars. They were used, and some of them had little scuffs or dents, but they were still perfectly useable. This school clearly had more instruments than they had students. Sabbath felt overwhelmed by all the different choices, until she spotted one instrument in particular propped up in the corner. It was a dusty, black acoustic guitar with a broken string. It also had a pink heart sticker on the front of it; some girl had clearly tried to brighten it up.

Sabbath walked over to it and picked it up. She didn’t know much of anything about guitars, but from what she could see, the rest of the strings looked alright. She blew a cloud of dust off the head to reveal its shiny finish.

“Do you think the teacher could fix this?” Sabbath asked, turning to the boy.

“I think so,” he said, walking over and pushing his glasses up onto his head to give the instrument a closer look. “It’s not too difficult to change a string. But are you sure you want this one? It looks kind of dirty…”

Sabbath wondered if this boy had seen the rest of the school. Compared to the things she’d seen in the gymnasium and the cafeteria, a little dust was nothing. She couldn’t explain why, but she really felt drawn to the instrument.

“I’m sure,” she replied with a smile. “And it’s not that bad; it’ll clean right up.”

“Alright,” he said, replacing his glasses on his nose and leading the way out of the room.

As Sabbath and the boy entered the classroom, a smile spread across the teacher’s face as he spotted what was in her hand.

“Ah, the good old acoustic. Nice choice, Miss Jane!” he said.

“Do you think you can fix the string?”

“Oh yeah, no problem. Stick around after class and I can fix it for you today if you like.”

Normally, from any other teacher, that may have sounded a little sketchy, but Sabbath trusted him. He looked like a harmless old hippy, like someone’s cool dad, and no one in the class looked even slightly afraid of him. If anything, it was _her_ they didn’t like.

Sabbath smiled and thanked the teacher, and took a seat near the back row of the class. That class seemed to go by the fastest of them all. She was surprised when the final bell rang and the students made a mad rush for the door. Before she knew it, all the other students had left. She stood amongst the empty seats, packing her bag.

“Come on over, Jane,” the teacher called out to her as he walked toward his desk. “Let’s have a look at that guitar…” _‘Does this guy know how creepy he sounds?’_ Sabbath thought to herself. Keeping her guard up, she walked over to his desk and handed over the instrument. Laying it out on his desk, the teacher began rummaging through several different draws before he produced a small, flat box and a pair of pliers. Sabbath took a step back. Without looking up at her, the teacher began working on the guitar.

“So you just moved here, huh? Must be hard for you, changing schools so close to the end of the year,” he said, keeping his focus on the guitar. Having removed the broken string, he pulled a coil of wire out of the flat box and stretched it out.

She didn’t know how to respond to the teacher’s question, so she muttered a small “yeah…”.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, fastening on the new string. “Usually, students have to pay $75 at the beginning of the semester for their instruments, in case they get lost or broken. But I don’t want to do the math to figure out how much it’d cost for just 6 weeks, so I’ll just let you use it for free.” Looking up at her with a kind smile and handing over the guitar, he continued, “Just don’t tell anyone. They’d be on me about it in a heartbeat. The Man’s big on money.”

“Wow, really? Thanks a lot!” she replied happily, taking the guitar. She couldn’t believe he’d actually referred to the school as ‘The Man’. Yep, this guy was definitely a hippy.

“Not a problem,” he said, turning his back to her to pack his own bags. “And there should be a case for it in the instrument room.”

Taking that as her cue to leave, Sabbath went back into the instrument room, grabbed what she hoped was the right case, and left the room. Her foster parents weren’t able to pick her up after school (much to their regret) because both of them worked late. Normally, she would’ve been thankful, but since her bag weighed a good 20lbs and she was carrying a guitar, she for once wished she had a ride.

Her house was only about 2 blocks from the school, but by the time she got there she was pouring sweat. Did this city have to be so hot? Forcing open the front door, she threw down her bag and leaned the guitar against the coat rack. As soon as she shut the door behind her, she ripped off her sweatshirt and stretched out her wings. They were a bit stiff, as always, from being cooped up all day. Plus, despite what she told people, it really was hot under the hoodie.

Sabbath walked towards the kitchen, slowly fanning her wings to try and cool off. Grabbing a water bottle out of the fridge, she held it to her forehead a moment before drinking out of it. When she raised the bottle to her lips she noticed that her sweat, combined with the fabric of her sweatshirt’s sleeves, had rubbed the make-up off her forearms, revealing the mysterious handprints.

After draining half the bottle, she set it on the counter and studied the marks on her arms. They looked like they’d been burned or tattooed into her skin, and they were far bigger than any handprints she could’ve made herself. She never knew for sure how she’d gotten them, but the Dark Man in her dreams told her they were His marks; His way of saying, ‘I control what you do and you’ll do as I say. You’re mine; I’ve got you and I’ll never let go.’

* * *

 


	5. Bird's Eye Tour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 4 of my OC Teen Titans Fanfic, The Second Curse. If you have not done so, please read the Prologue first, and then the chapters that precede this one. Note: there is no First Curse; this is not a sequel to anything. Hope you enjoy! : )

* * *

 

 

Sabbath had expected her first day to be the hardest, but it turned out to be the easiest. Apparently, after her first day at the new school, everyone expected her to suddenly know her way around and understand and obey all of the school’s rules. Between Tuesday and Friday, Sabbath was late to 7 different classes and had to get a pass each time, and she almost got a detention when she tried to leave school grounds during her lunch period (her previous school had had an open campus). Despite how hard everyone was on her, they all tried to convince her that they were ‘letting her off easy this time because she was new’. Since when is being tackled by campus security ‘letting her off easy’?

Her only solace during the entire week had been music class. She was way behind the other students, yet the teacher was very patient with her. He told her to just follow along in class as best she could, but instead of doing the assigned homework she was to work on the earlier lessons in the workbook and practice. But despite how behind she was, she still enjoyed the class. It was almost hypnotic to see the entire class playing together; and Sabbath longed for the day that she too could play music like them.

At night Sabbath would stay in, trying to get caught up with her new classes, although she focused on her guitar the most. She found that she could lose hours at a time just practicing notes. Once that week when she woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare, she found comfort in practicing the simple scales. The guitar was the only thing that seemed to make that week bearable. And finally, when Friday came, she was surprised. She realized she been so caught up in school that she hadn’t tried to fly all week. Was her wing healed yet? Raven had said it would be about two weeks, and that’s how much time had passed…

Once Friday night rolled around, Sabbath was itching to test out her wings. Usually she’d go for a short flight every couple days, but having gone two weeks without flying, she was really beginning to feel claustrophobic. It had been all she could think about that day at school, so she’d come up with a perfect excuse to get out of the house for a few hours that night. After dinner, Sabbath approached her foster parents and set her plan in motion.

“Hey, Mom?” Sabbath said sweetly as she helped clear the table.

“Yes, dear?” Mrs. Miller replied.

“Can I go see a movie tonight? I heard a group of girls at school talking about a really cool theater nearby, and there’s supposed to be a really good movie playing tonight…”

“Which movie is that?” Mr. Miller asked, walking in to the kitchen to retrieve his jacket. He’d tossed it on the counter when he got home from work, but had been so tired he left it there.

“Oh, I forgot the name, but it’s some new film about this teenage girl with a fatal disease who finds the strength to enter a marathon for charity,” Sabbath said. There was no such film, but it sounded generic enough and she knew it would bore the Millers to death and get them off her back.

“That sounds interesting,” Mr. Miller replied, his eyes glazing over as he retreated to the living room, his jacket forgotten once more.

“Yes dear, that sounds wonderful,” Mrs. Miller agreed, slightly more enthusiastic than her husband. “Let me just get my wallet and I’ll give you some money.”

“Yes! Thanks, Mom; thanks, Dad!” Sabbath said, her excitement clearly showing. Running upstairs to her bedroom, Sabbath grabbed her sweatshirt off her bed. Before she slipped it on, she gave her wings one final stretch and, sure enough, not a hint of pain. She couldn’t wait to be airborne again! Tucking her wings against her back, Sabbath pulled on her sweatshirt, turned the lights out, and headed back downstairs.

Her stepmother was waiting for her in the foyer. “Here you go, honey,” she said, handing Sabbath a twenty. “When does the movie get out?”

Sabbath had prepared all the facts ahead of time. “It starts in about 20 minutes, at 7:30, but I’m not sure when it gets out,” she replied. She left the ending time vague so she wouldn’t have a set curfew.

 “Are you sure you don’t want a ride?”

“Yes, Mom, I'm sure,” she answered, stuffing the $20 bill into her pocket.

“But you still don’t have a phone, how will we know when to come get you?”

“I’ll be fine, Mom. I’ll probably meet some classmates there and catch a ride with them.”

“Oh, OK. But if you want us to come get you, ask to use the phone at the theater, alright?”

“Will do,” Sabbath said, becoming annoyed.

“Ok, dear,” Mrs. Miller said, giving Sabbath a hug. “I love you!”

“I love you too, Mom, and I’ll be back in an hour or two, OK? Bye!” Before her stepmother could say anything more, Sabbath walked out the door and closed it behind her. Once she was on the sidewalk, she took a deep breath of the warm night air. Then, looking around the horizon, Sabbath began looking for the darkest part of the neighborhood, as she didn’t want anyone to see her take off. Conveniently enough, the school had shut down for the weekend, and it was too cheap to have security cameras or lights outdoors.

Sabbath jogged off towards the school. Looking it over, she decided the back parking lot was probably the darkest. Slowing her pace to a walk and putting her hood up, Sabbath walked casually over to the lot. Luckily, it was deserted. No loiterers or teachers in sight. Not even a janitor’s car, although considering the state of the school, that last part didn’t surprise her. Seeing the coast was clear, Sabbath took one quick look overhead to make sure there were no wires or other obstacles to interfere with her take-off. All she saw was a moonless sky full of stars. Sabbath smiled as she pulled her sweatshirt off and tied it around her waist. She loved nights like these. True, she loved any night she got to fly, but moonless nights were the best. The stars weren’t competing against the moon’s garish glow, and instead could be appreciated for their own light. Plus, without the moon, the night was darker, so she didn’t have to worry as much about people seeing her.

Warm, night air hit her wings as she let them unfold from her back. The same breeze then blew a few strands of hair into her face. Usually she’d have found it annoying, but absolutely nothing could bother her on her flying nights. Tucking the stray hairs behind her ear, she bent her knees and took off straight up into the air.

The gymnasium was taller than the rest of the one-story school building, but there were several buildings in the neighborhood that easily towered over the school. In seconds, Sabbath touched down on the gym’s gravel-covered roof to survey the area. Facing away from the direction of her house, she looked west towards the coast. She couldn’t see the ocean, but the buildings in that direction varied in heights and seemed to lead up to a skyscraper she could just make out on the horizon. Usually, she’d have found the closest, tallest building and shot up right to the top, but since it’d been a couple weeks since she’d used her wings, Sabbath figured it was best to take it slow for tonight.

About a block away, in the direction of the sky scraper, Sabbath spotted what looked like a three or four-story office building. She took off, scattering gravel in her wake, and headed straight for it. She landed on its roof, barely missing a large ventilation duct. This roof had no gravel, but there were lots of ducts and fans similar to the one she’d almost crashed into. Peering over the side of the building facing the street, Sabbath saw that it was actually a bunch of shops all crammed into one building. Looking down the rest of the street, she saw several more markets and boutiques similar to the one she’d landed on. There was everything from a name brand purse store to a flower shop, a movie store, and even a pizza restaurant ( _‘With a balcony shaped like a pizza slice,’_ she thought with a grin. _‘Cute.’_ ).

_‘This must be the center of town,’_ Sabbath thought. _‘I’ll have to remember this place.’_

Taking off again, Sabbath decided to go a few more blocks before stopping again. Her wings weren’t giving her any trouble; it was like she’d never broken one. Looking down at the city passing by below her, Sabbath found it fascinating how things looked at night when everything was closed. She sometimes liked to imagine all the shops were just for her, waiting for her arrival before they’d open their doors and show her a world totally different from what ordinary people saw during the day.

Sabbath was pulled out of her daydreaming when she spotted some familiar territory. She quickly reached out for the nearest streetlamp and pulled herself to a stop. Perching atop the light’s long, curved metal neck like a gargoyle, Sabbath surveyed the destruction below. This was the place where she’d faced the rock monster, “Cinderblock”, almost two weeks ago. She was shocked to see it still in such disrepair. For some reason, she’d thought the city would’ve fixed everything by now. But then she thought about it as she took in all the damage –which was a lot more extensive then she’d thought it was the last time she was there—and realized it would take a lot of time to repair.

Massive pieces of buildings were ripped off, dozens of windows were broken, and the street itself was stripped down to dirt. It was clear that some efforts had definitely been made to clean things up; the rubble was gone, all the damaged and destroyed cars had been towed away, and the street looked like it was being repaved ( _‘It must’ve been broken up pretty bad when that Cinderblock thing fell,’_ Sabbath thought), but there was still a long way to go. Some buildings had been stripped down to the main support beams in places, while other, shorter ones had portions of roof missing. It was like a mini natural disaster had hit just this block. Sabbath turned away and continued on her path towards the coast, guilt eating away at her.

_‘If I’d just been able to stop him sooner, none of this would’ve happened,’_ she thought to herself. _‘Yeah, apple seeds in his ear; what a great plan, Sabbath! Too bad you can’t make a tree grow to save your life!’_

Sabbath then heard an echo of the Dark Man’s words in her mind, causing a familiar shiver of fear to run up her spine. ‘The power of destruction is so much greater than that of creation. It takes a mere handful of men to erect a house, but a hurricane to bring it down. Men can be stopped, but a hurricane cannot. Why bother with mere creation, when destruction is stronger? Do you not wish to be strong?’

_‘But if creation is so simple, why does it seem so hard? And somehow it feels wrong to wreck things,’_ she continued. _‘Yes, getting to use that much power is great, but afterwards, when I see what I’ve done, I feel guilty. Like in the school gym. I was amazed at what I was able to do almost without trying, and it felt good; but now that I think of the people who have to fix it, or who were inconvenienced by its damage…’_

Another quote from her dreams drifted into her head, as if in response. ‘Guilt is a weak human emotion, due no doubt to your human genetics. It takes strength to overcome, but you are strong. And remember, men will always fear power. Would you cease developing your power because it scared others?’

Sabbath thought about that. She’d come across many people who were scared of her, but she never cared about them enough for it to matter. She couldn’t imagine getting that close to someone—or rather, someone letting her get that close. Yes, she cared about her foster parents, but they were always changing. She felt that her abilities were her only connections to what she considered her real family; her dead mother, the mysterious figure in her dreams, and her run-away sister. When she was flying or practicing her powers, she somehow felt truly at home. Nothing else ever made her feel that comfortable and happy.

Her mind a jumble of thoughts and emotions, Sabbath finally reached the coast. The skyscraper she’d spotted from the city was actually out in the harbor, standing alone on a small island. And it was shaped like a T.

She found a nearby lighthouse and landed on it. It was about a block away from the skyscraper she realized must be the infamous “Titans’ Tower”, but she still had a pretty decent view of it. It was easily the tallest building in the city. _‘But if they really are superheroes,’_ Sabbath thought to herself, _‘they’d need it to be in order to get a clear view of the whole city.’_ She still wasn’t sure how much of their story to believe. Maybe they were just some local millionaire’s kids or something. _‘Except millionaires don’t usually turn into dogs or heal people…’_ she thought to herself. She hated to admit it, but they did sort of seem to fit the qualifications of comic book superheroes. But superheroes didn’t really exist, did they?

Sabbath shook her head, trying in vain to clear her mind of all the confusion. She didn’t know what to believe. As far as she knew, she and her sister were two of a kind. She never thought there were people like them anywhere else in the world. Until now.

In the distance, she heard a church bell toll. 9pm already? It was getting late. She’d told the Millers the movie started at 7:30, but if she stayed out until 10:00, they’d probably become suspicious. Most movies lasted about an hour and a half, so she decided it was time to head back. Taking one last look at the Tower, Sabbath jumped off the lighthouse and reluctantly flew back the way she came.

_‘Tomorrow,’_ she told herself. _‘Tomorrow, I’ll go back and visit the Titans as promised and I’ll get some answers. Maybe this was all some kind of weird joke, or maybe I dreamed it…Or maybe this is all real!’_

* * *

 


	6. The Making of an Identity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 5 of my OC Teen Titans Fanfic, The Second Curse. If you have not done so, please read the Prologue first, and then the chapters that precede this one. Note: there is no First Curse; this is not a sequel to anything. Hope you enjoy! : )  
> Also, I tried to use a few different fonts in this chapter, but sadly the formatting on this site won't allow it. Bummer :(

* * *

 

There was that familiar fear again. No, it was more than fear, it was sheer terror. Sabbath couldn’t see any reason to be afraid; she couldn’t see anything at all. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed; her surroundings were pitch black. All she knew was that it was dark and she was terrified. She felt as though she were in a large room, but something else was in there with her, taking up almost all the air and pressing down on her. Something truly Dark. Fear caused her breath to catch in her throat and her stomach to seize up into a solid knot. He was here again; the Dark Man. She couldn’t see Him, but she could feel His presence all around her, suffocating her, and she could hear His words loud and clear in her head.

“You have not practiced as of late. It has been over a week since you used your powers. What good are they—are YOU—if you simply let them go to waste?!”

Sabbath knew from experience that excuses like “I’ve been busy” would get her nowhere. “I’m sorry,” she managed to choke out. The air felt as thick as smoke.

“Do you not wish to be strong?!” He demanded. He asked her this a lot, and Sabbath had learned long ago it was a rhetorical question. “As my daughter, I have given you the potential for immeasurable strength and power, yet you refuse to work for it.” He was getting angry. Sabbath could always tell when he was angry with her; the handprints around her forearms began to burn worse than the night she’d gotten them. “What has been given can be easily revoked.”

Sabbath’s back began to tingle and sting. Suddenly she saw a vision of her own back. Her wings were rotting off and falling in scraps to the floor, leaving bloody scars in their place. “NO!” she screamed, terrified at what she saw and desperate for Him to make it stop. Her back went numb and the vision disappeared, plunging her again into total blackness, though she could still sense the anger, Darkness, and malice surrounding her, filling her lungs with every breath she managed to take.

Sabbath then got another vision. In it she saw herself, doing incredibly things. Mountains rose up out of flat ground, and then crumbled and sank at her command. She summoned rain to come and fill oceans and rivers to the brim, and then made them evaporate and form hurricanes the size of continents. At her will, she caused the stars themselves to fall out of the sky like bombs, crushing entire cities in burning gas.

“No,” she said again. This was a scene He’d shown her many times before, and every time, she refused to believe it. “I can’t do that…that’s not me…”

“You will do as you were created to do!” His voice boomed in her head. Sabbath fell to her knees and pressed her palms against her ears, ignoring the intense stinging coming from her arms. But it did no good; she couldn’t block out a voice that was inside her head. Feeling beyond helpless and petrified, she felt herself beginning to cry.

The voice in her head softened, and the stinging in her arms diminished. She felt the atmosphere around her become less intimidating. Again the voice spoke to her, “Daughter. I created you, I can help you reach your potential, but you must listen to me. Today, before you meet your ‘Titans’, I want you to practice your powers. And when you reach Titans’ Tower, give them a show. They are not mere humans who are impressed with simple magic tricks.”

Sabbath dropped her hands from her ears, and wrapped her arms around herself.  She wasn’t so sure of showing her true self to the Titans. She’d never shown all of her abilities to anyone before. The only person who knew all of what she was was her sister, Dawn. Back at the tower, when Sabbath had told Robin her abilities were “easier to show than to tell”, she’d just been trying to get him off her back. She never really intended to show him, or any of the others!

“But do not reveal ALL,” –Sabbath’s forearms burned, as if to emphasize the word and hint at its implications—“of your secrets. The world is not yet ready for you.”

With those final words, Sabbath felt the Dark Man’s presence fade. It was instantly replaced with a blazing heat, the sensation of drowning, and the sensation of falling; all at once. Logically, the three feelings could never occur at the same time. However, she’d learned long ago that there is no such thing as logic in nightmares, unless it’s working against you. Just as Sabbath was about to reach the end of her plummet towards what she thought surely would be a painful death, she was jolted into consciousness, having been awakened by her own strangled screams.

_‘Another nightmare,’_ Sabbath thought as she tried to catch her breath. They always ended like that, but still it scared her every single time, and she always woke up screaming and numb with panic. Surprisingly, she didn’t hear her foster parents rushing up the stairs. Then she remembered their bedroom was on the first floor, two floors down from hers. ‘ _They must not be able to hear me up here,’_ she realized. Once her heart rate slowed down to that of an average human (and not that of a caffeinated hummingbird) and feeling returned to her body, Sabbath reached blindly towards her nightstand for her alarm clock. Clicking on its blue backlight, she read the time aloud.

“4:45am. Terrific.” Tossing the alarm clock to the floor, Sabbath collapsed angrily back onto her pillows. It was too late to go back to sleep, but too early to get up. Pale sunlight was just barely beginning to leak in under the blinds. With nothing better to do, she closed her eyes (throwing an arm over her face to keep out the offending glow of daybreak) and thought over her most recent nightmare.

Apparently, it was important to make a good impression on the Titans, but not to “reveal ALL of her secrets.” Sabbath supposed that meant she could tell them about her powers and all, but she should keep her mouth shut about the marks on her forearms, her sister, and the Dark Man.

But making a good impression meant she’d have to think up something really incredible. The Dark Man was right; she definitely needed to practice before she went to visit the Titans. The vision of her wings rotting off her back drifted back into her mind, making her shudder. Suddenly, she felt the need to make sure they were still there. Lowering her arm from her face, Sabbath sat up and looked over her shoulder. Yep, they were still there. A bit rumpled from sleep, but there.

But how could she give the Titans a “show”? She didn’t want to bore them, but she didn’t want to scare them either. If she just stood there, prattling off a list of her abilities, she’d sound arrogant…Sabbath decided to think it over.

By now, the sun was fully up and its light was streaming through the slats of her blinds. Knowing it would be impossible to even pretend to sleep with the obnoxious early morning sunlight invading her room, Sabbath yawned and got out of bed. She went through her morning routine as usual, her mind trying desperately to work through its morning fog to crank out ideas.

Once Sabbath reached her closet to pick out an outfit for the day, she stopped a moment, realizing today was a big day. And a practice day. Usually she wore painting clothes or workout clothes to practice. She didn’t want to wear clothes like that for her official introduction to the Titans, but she also didn’t want to get dirt on, soak, singe, or rip any of her good clothes. She could just wear practice clothes this morning for practice and then come home and change before going out to meet the Titans, but that would be a bit much to explain to her foster parents (Sabbath had decided not to tell them about the supposed local superheroes or her involvement with them. Her catholic, church-going foster parents always got a tad uncomfortable whenever Sabbath had tried to discuss her powers with them).

Then Sabbath had a brilliant idea; she’d go shopping for a new outfit before practice. Shed buy something cheap that looked nice, but that she didn’t much care what happened to it. Plus, a shopping day with new friends from school was a perfect excuse for Sabbath to get out of the house all day! Not that she’d actually be shopping all day, or that she had any friends, but her foster parents would buy it nonetheless. And if she had to put on some kind of performance for the Titans, Sabbath decided that a good performance deserved a good costume.

Excited to actually have a plan (and to go buy clothes. No girl is immune to new clothes), Sabbath threw on the first clothes she saw. She then grabbed a small, cloth knapsack (what would have been her bag for gym) and tossed the contents of her purse inside. Lastly, she snagged her hoodie off a nearby box (she still had a bit of unpacking to do) and ran down stairs.

It was still early in the morning, around 6:30am according to the microwave, when Sabbath entered the kitchen and found her foster father sitting at the kitchen table in his pajamas with the paper in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. ‘ _That’s right,’_ Sabbath realized. ‘ _Today’s Saturday; neither of them has work today. I can’t believe they’re actually awake this early on a Saturday...And they think_ I’m _strange!’_

“Morning, Dad!” Sabbath said cheerfully. She usually tried to avoid calling him “Dad” or “Father”, just as she tried to avoid calling Mrs. Miller “Mom”. But since Sabbath was about to ask for the entire day out of the house without a cellphone and offer only a vague excuse, she decided to lay on the charm.

Mr. Miller lowered his paper and looked up at his daughter. “Oh, good morning Sabbath,” he said with a pleasantly surprised look on his face. “My, you’re up early. You do know it’s before noon, right?” he said, teasing her. Though Sabbath tended to mentally separate herself from the Millers, and they were bothered by her abilities, they still cared about her. They figured her distance was due to normal teenage rebellion.

“Yeah, Dad,” Sabbath said, with a genuine eye roll. She knew they cared for her, and tried their best to treat her as their own flesh and blood, but she really hadn’t been with them long enough to form that kind of bond with them. Honestly, she’d never been with ANY family that long. “And I never sleep until noon!” she replied defensively. “But today I got up early because I couldn’t sleep.” That much was true. “I was too excited about today! Some girls from school asked if I would go shopping with them today. Can I Dad, please?” Cue the puppy-dog eyes.

“Are these the same girls you went to the movies with?” Mr. Miller asked.

“Yes,” Sabbath replied, thinking fast. “We’re getting to be close friends!”

“Oh, well that’s good, honey. I’m happy for you,” he said, folding his paper up and placing it on the table. Any form of girl talk seemed to painfully bore him.

“How long will you be gone?” asked a third voice. Mrs. Miller, ever the worrywart, had just walked into the kitchen, already dressed in her casual weekend clothes. She was carrying a black fluffy thing in her arms that Sabbath recognized as Robin, her kitten. “Who are these girls? Do you need a ride?”

“I’m not sure how long we’ll be gone. According to the girls, there’re a lot of stores in town. And no, Mom, we don’t need a ride. It’s only, like, a ten-minute walk from the school. And they’re the same girls I went to the movies with.”

“Yesterday?”

“When else did I go to the movies with friends?” Sabbath was getting irritated. She hated it when Mrs. Miller gave her the 3rd degree. Although she had to admit, her story was weakening… “It’s Saturday, Mom,” Sabbath continued, hoping to save herself. “We had fun yesterday at the movies so they asked if I wanted to go shopping with them today.”

Mrs. Miller glanced over to her husband, and the two seemed to have a mini discussion through looks alone. Then Mrs. Miller looked back to Sabbath and said, “Alright, have fun. Here, I’ll give you some money.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Sabbath replied, smiling up at her foster mother.

Robin squirmed out of Mrs. Miller’s arms as she turned to go find her purse. The kitten regarded Sabbath a moment before deciding Mr. Miller’s slipper-clad feet looked cozier than her arms. The little critter stalked under the kitchen table and began pawing at his feet. Mr. Miller then peered under the table and reached down to scooped up the little puff ball. The kitten sniffed at Mr. Miller’s coffee mug.

“Did you feed him today?” Sabbath asked.

“I believe your mother fed him earlier this morning; he woke us up pretty early today. Now I think he just wants attention,” Mr. Miller answered without breaking eye contact with the kitten. As he held it in his arms, its eyes began to close. It was fast asleep by the time Mrs. Miller returned to the kitchen.

“Here you go, dear; this should be enou—awww, would you look at that?” Mrs. Miller said, distracted by the sleeping kitten in her husband’s arms.

“…Yeah, he’s pretty adorable,” Sabbath said after a moment, regaining her foster mother’s attention. The kitten was incredibly cute, but Sabbath was in a rush to get going.

“Yeah...anyway, here’s some money,” Mrs. Miller continued. “This should be enough; I doubt you’ll spend more than $80 in one day in this town.”

“Thanks, Mom!” Sabbath said, stuffing the bills in her bag and smiling at her foster mother. “The girls and I will probably grab lunch in town, but I should be home for dinner.”

“Alright, honey,” Mrs. Miller said as Sabbath turned to run out the door. “Be careful!”

“And have fun!” said Mr. Miller.

Sabbath sighed as she closed the door behind her and started walking down the sidewalk. The Millers really were nice; she didn’t like lying to them. But how could she tell them the truth? They’d never accept it.

Shaking her head to clear her dreary thoughts, Sabbath focused on the goal ahead. First things first; she needed to find a new outfit that was both functional (as in wouldn’t show the dirt or singe marks that would surely develop over time) and attractive. _‘After all,_ ’ she thought. ‘ _The key factor in a first impression is appearance.’_  Sabbath was considering today’s meeting her first with the Titans, not wanting to count the time they’d found her battered and unconscious on a crushed minivan. After she found the right clothes, she’d need to find a quiet place to practice the “performance” she was to put on for the Titans, although she still didn’t have much of an idea of what she was going to do. And lastly, she needed to make her way to Titans’ Tower. ‘ _And I have to be home in time for dinner,’_ she reminded herself. Despite how tired she was beginning to feel, Sabbath was glad she’d gotten up early.

As she entered the downtown area, Sabbath looked around at all the shops that were beginning to open. She remembered flying over this place the night before, and couldn’t believe how much different things looked during the day. A large, 4-sided clock tower stood in the center of town, informing everyone that it was 7:30am. _‘How did I not see this thing last night?’_ Sabbath wondered. It was early in the day, yet already the cafes were beginning to lure in customers and shops were opening their doors. Sabbath was about to head into the closest clothing boutique when the smell of coffee and donuts wafted across the street to her. Her stomach grumbled in response, reminding her she’d neglected to have breakfast in her hurry to be out the door.

Looking around, she realized only a couple of stores were beginning to open, and most were still closed. Sabbath scolded herself for leaving so early. What had she been thinking? Leaving early wouldn’t make the stores open any earlier. Glancing up at the clock again, Sabbath told herself the world wouldn’t end if she took half an hour to have a quick something.

Sabbath crossed the street and entered the sweet-smelling café. It was a small place, painted and decorated in all the different shades of coffee. Yet, despite the sepia theme, there was quiet acoustic music playing over the speaker system. Sabbath recognized it as current, although the words were missing and it was all purely instrumental. Still, it wasn’t that bad. After waiting in line behind a business man and a girl with loud headphones, Sabbath finally made it to the counter. She decided on a bagel and coffee, since it would be quick (a small line was beginning to appear behind her) yet filling.

Taking a seat at one of the outdoor tables, Sabbath looked around, familiarizing herself with all the shops. She decided a methodical approach would be the best, and chose a nearby consignment store for her first stop. The large clock tower informed her it was 8:15. Most of the shops were open now, and Sabbath decided it was time to start shopping.

Tossing her bagel wrapper and empty coffee cup in the trash, Sabbath headed into the store. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was almost entirely juniors stuff. Everything from shoes to jewelry to clothes for all seasons (even though Sabbath was pretty sure it didn’t snow in this town); even bits of what looked like Halloween costumes. Everything here was one-of-a-kind. Unfortunately, Sabbath had had trouble with juniors t-shirts for a couple years now (and not just because of her wings), so shirt shopping here was out. However, there were a lot of shoes to pick from, as well as other various accessories. She decided to start with the shoes, as she was almost positive she’d find something there.

Walking towards the shelves of shoes, Sabbath hitched her bag up more securely on her shoulder before squatting down to dig through the vast selection. There was everything from dress shoes to snow boots, and everything in between. There were, of course, tons of sneakers, but Sabbath found them all to be either dirty, boring, or a combination of the two. She was beginning to lose hope as she neared the final section of shoes in her size; the winter boots. Sabbath was about to move on to the accessories part of the store when one box of boots caught her eye. It wasn’t too exciting, just sticking out further than the others in the tidy row of shoes. Reaching down on impulse to push them back onto the shelf, she found they wouldn’t move. It felt like there was something behind them. Curiosity getting the best of her, Sabbath bent down and pulled the snow boots down off the shelf to see what it was.

There, squished to the back of the shelf, was a pair of black, knee-high boots, with hot pick, flat soles like sneakers. Sabbath flipped them upside down and sadly saw that they were a size too small. Still, they did look big enough, and they were too cute to pass up without a fight. Sabbath stepped out of her sneakers and undid the subtle, full-length black zipper on the side of the boot. It slid on perfectly and fit as if it were made for her. And they were only $7. It was meant to be.

Happy with her incredible find, Sabbath put her sneakers back on and hugged the boots to her chest—making sure to hang on to them at all costs—as she walked towards the accessories. There were many different things all grouped together on the same shelf. Sunglasses, bracelets, socks, hair clips, etc. Near the top of a pile of socks (ew; used socks?), was a pair of plain black arm warmers. Sabbath picked them up and looked them over. Instead of thumb holes, they had a simple triangle of fabric at one end that ended in a loop. The picture on the tag showed them worn with the loop wrapped around the middle finger like a ring, the triangle giving it a gothic, almost renaissance-era look.

Arm warmers had never really been her thing, but now that she thought about it, why not? She’d briefly considered using them in the past to cover the marks on her forearms, but when she realized most arm warmers wrapped around one’s palm and the back of one’s hand, she thought of how easily they would catch fire with a flame in her hand and chose a sweatshirt and makeup instead. But these arm warmers would barely touched her palms at all and only partially cover the backs of her hands. Plus, they were made of a much thinner (though not transparent) fabric than her sweatshirt and would certainly be much more practical during the blazing hot summer.

Sabbath tucked her boots under one arm and stretched one of the arm warmers on to see how it fit (after first looking around to make sure no one would see her briefly exposed arm. She sometimes wondered if she went beyond self-conscious into just plain paranoid, but what could she do?). The loop around her middle finger was thin and barely noticeable, and the triangle of cloth along the back made her hand look long and elegant. The rest of the arm warmer slid easily all the way to her elbow; covering her entire forearm perfectly. She had used a layer of cover-up on the handprints on her arms as she always did, but she felt confident that even without it, the arm warmer would hide the marks from view.  Plus, the arm warmers were very comfortable. They were made from a silky black fabric with a sheer black fabric over it, and Sabbath had to admit they were very soft. Noting that the price tag read $4, Sabbath happily peeled the arm warmer off and added it and its pair to the growing pile in her arms.

Sabbath poked around the consignment store a little while longer, but found nothing else of interest. She made her purchase and quickly moved on to the next store, knowing she still had to practice her powers once she finished shopping before she could go see the Titans.  Sabbath walked past several shops before stopping again. Most stores on this street were either jewelry stores, cafes, or more expensive boutiques. Eventually Sabbath came to what was obviously a Goth shop. The window display was all black and red; dead dolls, spiked or ripped things, and plaid seemed to be the theme. The store was called NightLife, and it was impossible to see into from the outside. The red window display backgrounds completely shielded the inside of the store from view, and door was made of tinted glass. Still, Sabbath decided it was worth a look. The place looked interesting, and considering the black boots and arm warmers she’d bought, she was sure she’d find matching items in this store.

Though the shop’s door was normal, the sound of a creaky wooden door played from a nearby, hidden speaker when she opened it instead of the normal bell sound effect most stores had. It was mildly creepy, but Sabbath liked it. Perhaps this store fit her style more than she wanted to admit. A girl with bright pink pigtails, a black choker and multiple piercings smiled at her from behind the counter. The store was lit with a combination of white and red lights (mostly red ones), with a couple black lights in the back; the walls and floor a matte black. Sabbath smiled back at her and began looking over the various shelves and racks.

The first rack she came to was a bunch of different girls’ shirts. Sabbath flipped through, at first not really seeing anything she liked. She grabbed a basic black tee, a black tank top with a big white “X” on it, and another black tee with a hot pink skull on the front. She realized she was picking up a lot of black, but figured it was the best color for hiding dirt and burn marks. Tossing her selections over her arm, Sabbath moved on to the pants and skirts. She grabbed a pair of black and white Tripps, and then on impulse a pink and black plaid skirt. She threw the pants and skirt over her arm as well and found a dressing room in the back of the store.

 This was the only normal-looking part of the store. Small changing stalls, fluorescent white lights, ugly carpeting, tri-fold mirrors, etc. The first outfit Sabbath tried was the black and white Tripps with the black, white “X” tank top (although, because of the wings, she had to just hold the shirt up to herself and get a general idea of how it would look and fit). The colors matched, and the back of the tank top was cut in a way that she wouldn’t need to make holes for her wings, but the boots and arm warmers she already bought would’ve looked weird with that outfit. She tried switching the tank top for the plain black tee. Sabbath grimaced as she turned to look in the mirror again. With her long black hair and dark eyes, the outfit looked a little too depressing. Add to that the large black bat wings that would show once she cut slits in the shirt, and one would think she were a villain, not going to meet a bunch of heroes. The same problem arose with the black and pink skull tee.

Sighing in frustration, Sabbath changed into the black and pink plaid skirt. Aside from the fact that it didn’t even reach her knees, there was the obvious problem of flying in a skirt. But the skirt did match the black tee with the pink skull on it, as well as the black and pink boots. The skirt had more shades of pink than black, so the ensemble wasn’t too dark, yet the plaid pattern would hide any burns or dirt. Plus, a skirt would show off the boots better than the Tripps would. Of course, she’d have to wear something under it if she were to even think of flying in it. But something as simple as shorts or leggings would work well enough.

Sabbath left the dressing room, leaving the Tripps, the tank top, and the plain black tee on the reject rack. She couldn’t believe the luck she was having today! Usually she’d find a few things here and there, but never an entire, color-coordinated outfit. She was really starting to get excited for the day ahead.

Once she got to the checkout, Sabbath was looking down into the glass case under the counter as the girl rung up her purchase. The jewelry was so unusual, yet it really was beautiful. Sabbath wasn’t really thinking of buying any, however, until one piece in particular caught her eye. It was a pink ribbon choker with a black pendant. It was the pendant that really got her; it was about one inch long and was a perfect, three-dimensional tear shape. Under the bright lights of the glass case, it seemed almost transparent. Yet at the same time, it looked as if it contained every color under the sun.

“I said, that’ll be $15.95,”

Sabbath looked up, startled. She’d been so busy starring at the pendant, she hadn’t realized the cashier was talking to her. “Um, yeah,” Sabbath said, regaining her bearings. “Could I see that necklace, please?” she asked, pointing into the case.

The cashier began to look annoyed, but didn’t say anything as she bent down to retrieve the necklace. She stood up and handed it to Sabbath. Under the dimmer store lights, it no longer looked transparent. It looked a solid black, but Sabbath suspected that under full sunlight, its colors would return. Grinning, she added, “I’ll take this too.”

All previous signs of friendliness now gone, the cashier rung up the necklace and put it in a small, plain black bag before putting it in the larger black bag with the skirt and tee shirt. “That brings your total to $35.94. Will there be anything else today?”

“Nope, that’ll do it,” Sabbath replied with a smile as she handed over the money, too happy about her purchases to care how much the necklace had cost.

“Have a nice day,” the cashier said automatically as she handed Sabbath her bag and receipt. Stuffing the change in her pocket, she left the store.

Her outfit was nearly complete; all she needed now was something to go under the skirt. At the end of the street, Sabbath came to a costume shop called “Funky Jim’s”. It was another store with unusual clothing, only instead of Goth attire, it looked like more of a novelty shop. It seemed to have everything from masks and Halloween costumes and accessories to stage make-up and party lights. There was also the largest collection of jokes, gags, and prank kits she’d ever seen (the entire left half of the store seemed devoted to it). She wasn’t sure if she’d find what she was looking for here, but it looked like an interesting place, and she still had some time since the other shops had fortunately been quick stops.

Sabbath pushed open the door and a clown horn sounded; a change from NightLife’s creaky coffin sound, but still not the simple bell she kept expecting. And yet, she couldn’t help but smile at the silliness of it. She wondered if this was the kind of store Beast Boy would like; he’d stricken her as a sort of class clown. She realized then how excited she was to see him again, as well as the rest of the Titans. There’d just been something she liked about them.

_‘Maybe because they’re the first people in years who haven’t looked at me like some kind of escaped mental patient?’_

“Why hellll-o there little lady!” boomed an overly cheerful voice, interrupting her train of thought. “And how are we this mighty-fine day?”

Sabbath looked up, startled, at the large, loud man who hadn’t been anywhere in sight last she’d checked. He was a tall, bulky, balding man whom she assumed was maybe in his mid to late fourties. He was wearing casual, khaki pants, tattered penny loafers, a gaudy Hawaiian-print shirt (open at the top, exposing the top of his unfortunately hairy chest), a gold chain, and he had sunglass perched atop his head (they didn’t hide his heavily receding hairline as much as he probably hoped). This could be none other than Funky Jim himself. He was smiling at Sabbath, although giving her a slightly expectant look. Shocked by his sudden appearance as well as his attire, she’d forgotten he’d actually spoken to her.

“Um, hi,” she replied uneasily, still thrown off guard. “I’m doing fine, and you?” she continued automatically.

“I’m just dandy!” he said boisterously. He had a slight southern accent. “Mah name’s Funky Jim, but you can call me Henry James Nicholas III, for short,” he continued with a grin, extending his hand in an ironically formal gesture. Yet

Sabbath shifted her shopping bags from her right hand to her left hand so she could take shake hand. “I'm Ja-” she said, trying to be polite, but was cut off when something buzzed sharply against her palm. “Ah!” she exclaimed in shock, releasing his hand and taking a step backward, examining her palm.

“Heheheh! Gotcha!” he said, revealing the joke buzzer strapped to his hand with a leather band. If she’d been looking for it, it would have been hard to miss. But she hadn’t been expecting anything of the sort, so she hadn’t seen it coming. It was also an incredibly cheesy, hackneyed prank. She didn’t know people still used it anymore. Regardless of the prank, Sabbath decided she liked Funky Jim, or “Henry James Nicholas III”. He sort of reminded her of her hippy music teacher. But instead of someone’s cool dad, Funky Jim reminded her more of someone’s embarrassing-yet-tons-of-fun uncle.

“So what can I help you with?” he asked, casually sliding his hands in his pockets as if nothing had happened, suddenly all professional.

“I’m not sure, exactly,” Sabbath replied. She didn’t quite know what she was looking for, just that she’d know it if she saw it. “Just browsing, really. I’ve never seen this place before.”

“Well, feel free to take a look around. I’ll be out back, but just give a holler if ya need me!” and with a wink, Funky Jim strolled out of view behind a shelf. Seconds later, Sabbath heard a door slam.

_‘Well…’_ Sabbath thought to herself, still somewhat stunned. _‘That was…different…’_

She walked by the first couple of shelves, not interested in make-up, props, or children’s’ costumes. She stopped briefly when she got to the women’s costumes. She picked a long black cape off the rack and considered it. A cape would definitely be more comfortable that a sweatshirt as far as hiding her wings. Plus, it would fit in with the whole superhero style the Titans seemed so big on. Hadn’t Robin been wearing one? And Raven?

However, when she really thought about it, Sabbath realized flying with it on would be close to impossible; she’d have to take it off in order to fly, just like with her hoodie.  But a cape wasn’t something she could easily tie around her waist, nor did it look normal in public. Sabbath put the cape back on the rack and moved on.

She then came to the costume accessory part of the store, containing everything from belts and shoes to hats and glasses. However, all the accessories seemed to be in the same category. Fangs were with the white gloves and red brooches; cowboy hats were with the cowboy boots, guns, and holsters; pointy witch hats were with broomsticks, stockings, and wands, etc.

Sabbath stopped a moment at the witch accessories. A hat wasn’t necessary, nor was a broomstick, but she saw one pair of tights that interested her. They were black and pink horizontal stripes. They were the only pair in those colors left, but Sabbath saw they were, luckily, one size fits all (as most costume accessories usually are). They would be perfect for the skirt. Black and pink was definitely the theme of her outfit, and she couldn’t believe she’d found all matching shades of pink.

Happy with her find, and with her outfit now complete, Sabbath headed towards the register in the center of the store, only to find no one there. Then she remembered Funky Jim had gone “out back”. She would’ve felt weird yelling out his name, plus she didn’t know what to call him (Funky Jim? Mr. Jim? Mr. Funky? Henry James Nicholas III?). She was about to go find him when she noticed the bell on the counter. Well, it was more of a giant red button than a bell. There was a sign taped to the counter next to it that read “push button for service : )”.

Sabbath put the tights on the counter and reached out for the button. Instead of a bell or a buzzer, a loud fart sound effect emanated throughout the store when she pushed the button. Sabbath hung her head in embarrassment, by now at a total loss for words.

Funky Jim emerged from the back room moments later, carrying a large box full of various metal and plastic junk. “You rang?” he asked with a grin. Sabbath could only look at him and offer a weak smile in response.

He walked behind the counter, placing the box off to the side. It landed with a rattling thud. “What’s all that?” Sabbath asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

“Well, it USED to be my microwave oven,” he replied, a mix of sadness and anger touching his voice as he followed her gaze to the box. “But now it’s just broken junk. I thought I could fix it m’self, but now I suppose the only place for it is the junk yard. ‘Course the Man’s too cheap to bother taking big trash to the dump for free, so I gotta bring it there m’self after closing tonight.”

Sabbath couldn’t believe he’d used the term “The Man”, just like her music teacher. Were the two actually related? But he’d also said something else that grabbed her attention.

“This town has a dump?” she asked, an idea quickly forming in her mind.

“Yeah, down the coast aways, a couple miles south of that big ol’ T.”

Sabbath thought about that as he scanned the price tag on the tights and stuffed them in a bag. Unlike plain, normal shopping bags (though why she kept expecting this place to be normal, she didn’t know), Funky Jim’s were tie-dyed all different colors; a smiling jester wearing sunglasses printed on the front.

“That’ll be $5.50,” he informed her.

A “T”? That reminded her, “Hey, have you seen a green boy come in here?” she asked, taking the bag and handing over the cash. Not only did she think this might be Beast Boy’s kind of place, but she also realized she’d never heard anyone else ever talk about the Titans. She still wondered how credible they really were, and refused to totally believe comic book superheroes existed in her town.

“The Beast Boy?” he said, alarmed. “You know ‘im??”

“Sort of,” she replied, mildly concerned at his reaction.

“Weeeeell, I’d keep mah eye on ‘im if I was you; he’s a trouble maker, that one!” he continued, narrowing his eyes and looking disapproving, though Sabbath could now tell he was joking. “Quite a shifty character.”

Sabbath couldn’t help but laugh at the shifter pun, as bad as it was. Also, she highly doubted Beast Boy was any kind of trouble maker. But she played along, “Alrighty, will do!” She waved good bye to Funky Jim as she left the store, the clown horn sounding again as she opened the door.

“Have a funky day!” he called after her with a smile.

Sabbath was grinning as she walked down the street away from Funky Jim’s. As silly as it was, that place had made her day. True, she’d been pranked and humiliated repeatedly, but it was all in good fun. She’d have to go there again someday. But mainly, she was happy to know that someone else knew of at least one of the Titans (so she hadn’t imagined them) and didn’t seem honestly concerned about them either, so Sabbath figured they couldn’t be totally horrible people.

‘ _Alright,’_ she thought to herself, returning her train of thought to the tasks ahead. _‘Now I just have to change, and then find out where exactly that dump is.’_ She decided the dump would be the best place for a practice session. No one would care if she broke things, and it wasn’t teeming with people. Plus, she imagined it would be pretty secluded, as most garbage dumps were, and it would be a straight shot up the coast from there to Titan’s Tower.

Sabbath then came to a small ice cream shop the next street over. It was the kind of place that, although there were a couple tables crammed inside, they really encouraged customers to eat at the benches outdoors. It was a small shop with a huge ice cream cone on its roof (another thing she’d somehow missed on her late night flight). Sabbath walked into the shop and chose one of the three small tables near the back of the shop, the front being taken up by a large counter full of different ice creams. She suspected this kind of place didn’t have public restrooms, so she set her shoulder bag on the table to make it look like she was going to be there a while (she doubted this was the kind of place one had to watch one’s purse in. Besides, all her money was in her pocket anyway, as well as her house key. All that was in her bag was her iPod, an old lip gloss, and half a pack of gum).

 She spotted a restroom sign on the wall behind her, and with shopping bags in hand, discreetly made her way towards it. It had been noisy in the main area of the shop due to all the people ordering ice cream and the employees yelling orders to each other, but now that she was in the ladies’ room, the realized they had the radio playing over the speaker system. Sabbath ducked into the handicapped stall and started changing into her new clothes. She didn’t recognize the tune playing on the radio, and figured it must be something new. It wasn’t too bad, really. The song ended as she was sliding on the skirt over the tights. A she suspected, they went together perfectly.

“Wasn’t that great folks?” said the radio announcer when the song ended. “That was Star Spanagled’s latest hit, ‘Kick Me When I’m Down’. Check out more about them on our website, as well as an exclusive look at their upcoming music video. From what I’ve seen, it’s fantastic. A combination of a sci-fi magic show and an action fight scene. Check it out now at our website, www.wqbj.com. Next up is the latest from Pink on 107.9 WQBJ.”

‘ _That’s an…interesting combination,’_ Sabbath thought to herself as she pulled off her t-shirt. Grabbing the black shirt with the skull out of its bag and ripping off the price tag, Sabbath suddenly realized she had a problem. She’d been so caught up in shopping and the day ahead, she forgot she would need some way to make slits in the back of her new shirt.

‘ _Great,’_ she though, as she stood there with the shirt in her hand. She shifted her weight as she contemplated what to do next. When she moved, she stepped on her jeans that were still on the floor. She stepped on something hard, though, which shouldn’t have happened. Turning around, she bent and picked up her jeans off the floor to see what was under them. There was nothing there. But as she did so, something metal fell out of the pocket and clinked to the bathroom stall’s tile floor. Her house key! Picking it up, she examined its jagged edge. She noticed it had sort of a point to it, too, and suddenly an idea flew into her mind.

It would’ve seemed strange to walk out of the restroom half-dressed and ask for a pair of scissors, but she really didn’t want to wear the navy t-shirt she’d been wearing before (it had been the first thing she grabbed that morning, and not only would it not match the rest of her new clothes, but once she’d left the house and seen herself in the daylight, she’d noticed a bleach spot near the hem and a small hole near the neck. Sabbath decided cutting the holes with her house key would be better than nothing, and she could smooth out the rough cuts later.

By now an expert on making wing holes in the backs of shirts, Sabbath didn’t need to try the shirt on to see where to make them. Carefully, she poked the key through the back of the shirt from the inside. Holding the neck of the shirt tightly in her other hand, she dragged the key downward about 6 inches, wincing at the ripping noise. She then did the same a couple inches to the right. She then put the key in one of the shopping bags and held the shirt up to inspect her work. ‘ _Good enough,’_ she told herself.

Once she had the shirt on and her wings through the holes, she started to feel the whole thing coming together. She felt the giddiness a child feels when putting on their Halloween costume. Eagerly, she stepped into the boots. She couldn’t believe how great they looked with the rest of the outfit. Because they went nearly up to her knees, it made the skirt appear not quite as short (she worried it might look too short, as she wasn’t used to wearing skirts). She pulled the necklace out of its bag and put it on. Another dream fit. Lastly, she pulled the arm warmers out of their bag and snapped the plastic tie holding them together. She yanked off the price tag and tucked one arm warmer under her arm while she slid the first one on her right hand. It fit perfectly and completely hid her marks. As she put the left one on and her outfit was completed, she felt…different, somehow; stronger, justified. It felt right. It felt like home.

Just then, another person entered the restroom, slamming the door behind them and bringing Sabbath’s thoughts back to the present situation. She watched the space under her stall door and saw the person’s shadow walk past her door in favor of the second one down from her. Quickly shrugging back into her sweatshirt, Sabbath stuffed everything else she’d brought into the stall in the big, black Nightlife bag, and hurried out of the restroom.

She went back to the table she’d left her backpack at and sat down. After checking to make sure the contents of her pack hadn’t been disturbed, she stuffed the Nightlife bag into it and slung it over her shoulder. She sat there for a couple minutes longer and watched a few customers come and go. She pretended to consider the menu hanging from the ceiling for a few moments before she approached the cashier.

“Can I help you?” said the acne-ridden boy behind the counter, sounding as if by now, the phrase had lost all meaning and the last thing he wanted to do was take her order.

“Yeah, can you tell me what time it is?” she asked, ignoring his dull attitude.

He glanced to his left and then quickly back at Sabbath and said blandly, “10:45.” He sounded completely bored.

“Awesome, thanks.” She said. “Oh, and how do I get to the city dump from here?”

“…’Serious?”

“Yes, do you know or not?”

“I guess you can take the bus...” he replied, not entirely helpful.

Sabbath would’ve asked him for more information, but a line was beginning to form behind her, so she thanked him (reluctantly; the guy was a jerk) and left.

Not knowing where the bus stops were in that city, and hating the fact that she couldn’t fly during the day, Sabbath decided her only choice was to walk to the dump. Funky Jim had said it was only a couple miles past Titans’ Tower, but he hadn’t specified how many exactly. With a sigh, Sabbath turned onto the next street down, heading towards the coast.

It was times like these that she hated how ignorant people were. She could be at the dump in minutes, instead of hours, if she could fly there. But no, people would freak out and panic or shoot her down or something if they saw her. Meanwhile, the day was only getting hotter. As she turned the corner, she came to electronics’ store called “Cook’s”. As she passed by, the TVs in the window display started playing the music video for that song she’d heard in the ice cream shop. It wasn’t a bad song, so Sabbath turned to watch it. She remembered then what the radio had said, that it was a “combination of a sci-fi magic show and an action fight scene”. At the time it had sounded like a weird mix, but now that she saw it, she got what they meant. It had a lot of special effects and seemed to be about two magical, futuristic gangs fighting. One was a gang of demons, the other a gang of angels (male angels of course). They wore strange metal armor and were swooping down on one other, shooting lightning and fire, etc. It was rather impressive, especially for a music video, although Sabbath suspected it was just the thousand-dollar televisions. Still, as she listened to the song and watched the angels and demons fight, an idea formed in her head.

She ran into the electronics’ store and made a quick purchase with the rest of her money, leaving her with about $1.50 in change. As she was checking out, she asked the nerdy-looking boy, “Darren”, at the counter about the local bus routes. He seemed much more eager to please her (he probably didn’t see a lot of girls in his store) than the guy at the ice cream shop. Not only did this boy tell her where the bus stops were, but he pulled up the bus routes’ map and schedule on his iPhone. Sabbath smiled and thanked him as she took her bag and left the store.

According to Darren, there was a bus stop the next block over and the right bus would be there within the next half hour. Sabbath came to the bus stop and sat on the bench to wait. The bag from Cook’s was too big to fit in her small backpack—which was now full of clothes and empty shopping bags—so she held it in her lap. She was happy that she finally had a plan for what to do when she got to Titans’ Tower, although she was still a little nervous; she’d never shown off her powers to anyone before. Not in a very long time. She hoped they wouldn’t think her too theatrical.

Soon the bus arrived. She paid the fare and was at the dump in about twenty minutes. Once she got there, however, she realized she couldn’t just walk in the front gate. For some reason, there were actually guards there and the whole place was fenced off. Why this city was so intent on protecting its trash, she had no idea. The dump was also a lot bigger than she’d expected. From where she stood, she couldn’t see the other end of it, or even the ocean, for that matter. It was right on the coast, as Funky Jim had said, yet the various mounds and trailers (trailers??) hid it from view. It didn’t smell, though. Never having had any reason to go to a dump, Sabbath had expected mountains of trash bags and a terrible stench. But luckily, she’d learned from a kind old lady on the bus that the dump was actually a landfill. The mounds and hills she was seeing must be years and years’ worth of buried trash.

But how to get in?

Sabbath walked along the outside of the fence, hoping to find some kind of rusted-out hole or tear in the old chain-link fence. Eventually she lost sight of the main gate, and yet she still couldn’t find a way through the fence. _‘Guess I’ll just have to go over it,’_ she decided.

Looking around to make sure there was no one to see her, Sabbath shrugged out of her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist. The sight of her wings in the sunlight made her a little uneasy, but she told herself that she was here to practice her powers anyway, so it didn’t matter. Plus, it’s not like there was anyone around. All the guards seemed to be at the front gate; and there weren’t even any security cameras. So, with her mind made up, Sabbath stretched out her wings, backed up a few steps, and quickly flew over the fence

She touched down just inside the fence and continued to follow it until she was at the far back of the dump and the shoreline was within sight. Turning to her right, she was also just able to make out Titans’ tower. She passed a few of the trailers she’d spotted when she first arrived, and now noticed they were full of trash. Not garbage bags or anything, but bigger things. One trailer was full of old monitors, another full of propane and gas tanks, and yet another loaded to the brim with old tires. There were also a few huge recycling bins further ahead; one labeled “PAPER”, another labeled “PLASTICS”, etc.

Overall, the dump looked dead. There were no birds around; not even seagulls. There wasn’t a lot of grass on the ground, either. It was more a mix of sand, dirt, and gravel. There was one bush of bittersweet climbing up the fence near where she’d entered the dump, but that was it. The ocean was only a few yards in front of her, but even that didn’t look as lively as the rest of the shore.

_‘Perfect,’_ thought Sabbath. It was secluded and there was nothing of value, yet all four elements were present. It was a great place for her to practice. Finding a generally flat area between two hills, Sabbath took off her backpack and laid it on the ground near her feet. She then unpacked her purchase from Cook’s and set that up (luckily, it came with batteries). _‘Alright,’_ she thought to herself, taking her iPod out of her bag. _‘A quick run through to get the routine down, then it’s off to see the Titans!’_

* * *

 


	7. Second Is the best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 6 of my OC Teen Titans Fanfic, The Second Curse. If you have not done so, please read the Prologue first, and then the chapters that precede this one. Note: there is no First Curse; this is not a sequel to anything. Hope you enjoy! : )
> 
> PS. Please note: this story supports the RobXStar pairing. The whole thing with Beast Boy and Starfire in the car is just Starfire being Starfire.

* * *

 

Sabbath had just finished packing up from her practice session and was leaving the dump almost in the same condition in which she’d found it. Surely no one would miss those melted tires, and maybe no one would notice the soggy pile of crushed stone. But even if they did, Sabbath was positive she hadn’t been seen.

There was nothing but crumbling, deserted shoreline between the dump and Titans’ Tower. It couldn’t really be called a beach because it was too rocky, and there were definitely no people there. But since there were no people around, Sabbath decided to fly to the tower. According to her iPod, it was fast approaching 1:30pm, and she didn’t want to waste any more time. Plus, flying helped cool her off. She had worked up a bit of a sweat during practice (it had to be over 80 degrees, even that close to the ocean), and didn’t want to show up at the Tower all sweaty and gross.

Once she got to the Tower’s island, she touched down on a rock and took a minute to look the place over. It was a lot different than the last time she’d seen it, then again most things look different in the light of day. Eventually, Sabbath spotted what she assumed was the front door of the Tower. She walked over to it and looked for some kind of a doorbell, but there wasn’t one to be found. There was a key pad and what looked like a handprint recognizer, but no doorbell. Terrific.

Sabbath crossed her arms and began to feel discouraged. Out of all the preparation she’d done for this day, this was the one aspect that she hadn’t really given any thought to. After all, who doesn’t have a doorbell?? She was beginning to wonder if she should just give up when she heard voices yelling and cheering from the roof.

 _‘The roof?’_ thought Sabbath. Confused and curious, she flew up towards the sounds. She stopped when she got there, her bottom half still hidden by the roof’s edge, and flattened her hands against the roof’s cement top for balance. The Titans were playing soccer (except for Raven, who appeared to be playing the part of reluctant referee). On the roof. In fact, they seemed to have a few different game set ups up there; a volleyball/tennis court, a couple basketball hoops, etc. For some reason, Sabbath wasn’t surprised; she’d already suspected they were rich.

But the only game set up currently in use was the field with a net goal on each end. The set up was all the way across the roof from her on the opposite end. She watched the game for a moment, unnoticed by the Titans. It was sort of awkward, really. She didn’t want to interrupt their game or be accused of sneaking up on them (the last thing she wanted was to come off as creepy), yet she felt like a stalker just hovering there. She was still debating what to do when the tall redhead, Starfire, gave a loud cry and kicked the ball, hard, towards the goal (were her eyes glowing?). Robin seemed to be the goalie for the opposing team. He lunged to the right, trying to catch the ball, but Starfire’s aim had been a tad off. Instead of going in the goal, the ball hit the post and ricocheted completely off the field. Right in Sabbath’s direction.

The Titan’s watched the ball fly in amazement, and seemed to notice Sabbath’s presence at the same time they realized the ball was heading straight for her face. Everything happened so fast, yet it all seemed to be in slow motion from Sabbath’s point of view. The ball sped towards her. The Titans’ eyes bugged out of their heads simultaneously. A couple of them shouted at her. Instinctively, Sabbath stopped beating her wings and ducked. She grabbed onto the roof’s ledge at the last second to keep from falling out of the air completely (and just barely managing to keep her face from slamming into the side of the roof). The ball soared clear overhead, but Sabbath felt a few hairs get pulled back in the force of its wake. After a moment she faintly heard it bounce off the rocks far below and splash into the ocean.

That Starfire was definitely stronger than she looked.

Shocked, Sabbath simply hung there for a moment, catching her breath and trying to convince her heart and stomach, which seemed to have switched places, to go back where they belonged. She heard the Titans running towards her, shouting. Before they got to her, she pulled herself up onto the ledge and stood up. Playing it cool, she brushed a few specks of dirt off her skirt and said, “Yikes, I get it! I’ll come back later!”

***Beast Boy’s POV***

Beast Boy’s heart was pounding, his mind reeling in shock. He couldn’t believe it. It seemed like just yesterday Terra had been there, interrupting their volleyball game on the roof (who knew how long ago it had really been). And now, here was Jane, interrupting their soccer game. The similarities between the two situations stunned him. Plus, although Beast Boy couldn’t put his finger on it, there was something familiar about Jane. She bore no real resemblance to Terra, but did she remind him of her? Well, if she hadn’t before, she definitely did now…

He was ecstatic that Jane had come back; now maybe she’d finally tell them what her powers were? What he’d seen that night walking her home was unlike anything he’d ever seen in his entire life. He’d never admit it out loud, but he’d even dreamt about her once or twice since then, his unconscious mind trying to solve the mysteries she’d left him with. Man, Raven was right; he really was a pathetic mess…

***Return to Normal/Sabbath’s POV***

Robin was at the front of the group when they got to her. He smiled, seeing she was alright, but felt the need to ask anyways. “Jane, are you OK? That was close.”

“I’m fine,” Sabbath assured him. “Sorry to come by unannounced. You guys don’t believe in doorbells, huh?”

But before anyone could answer her, Starfire pushed to the front of the group, apparently the only one among them who still thought Sabbath was fatally wounded. Her eyes, no longer glowing, but still green, looked like they were going to explode with tears any minute now.

“I am so terribly sorry, friend. I did not know you were there until…until…” her voice began to waver, and it looked as if she really were about to cry.

“Starfire, it’s alright. Look, I’m fine, see?” Sabbath said, raising her arms and spinning around to show she was still perfectly intact. “No harm, no foul,” she continued, offering a smile.

“But…you fell,” Starfire went on, barely holding back the tears now.

“Really, I'm ok, I was ju-“ but Sabbath didn’t get to finish that sentence, because Starfire chose that moment to envelope her in the world’s biggest, most lung-crushing hug ever.

“Honestly?” Starfire asked again, hugging her tightly. “You are not injured at all?”

“Not…yet…” Sabbath gasped. “But…air…would be…nice!”

Starfire released her and gave a weak smile. Sabbath coughed a bit and replenished the oxygen in her lungs before straightening and returning the expression. Starfire still seemed a bit upset at what had almost happened, but looked to now believe that Sabbath would, in fact, live.

“So…” Cyborg began awkwardly. “What brings you ‘round here?”

“Well,” Sabbath started, wondering if she’d misinterpreted their previous friendliness as a genuine invitation to return. “The other week, you guys patched me up and all, and I just wanted to come back and thank you.”

“Yeah, and I told her to come back and visit us once she healed up,” Beast Boy added, rescuing what was becoming a rather awkward situation. “And I believe the lady also promised a show of her powers, since she wouldn’t tell us anything the last time we met.”

Sabbath, though she had made no such promise, played along. Expressing much more confidence than she felt at this point, she said, “Don’t tell me you forgot about me,” and grinned.

“No, of course not,” Robin said.

Raven was eerily silent at the back of the group.

Sabbath remembered the Dark Man’s words, ‘ _give them a show.’_ Yet now she wasn’t so sure. What did she really expect, anyway; for them to suddenly fawn all over her and become instant best friends? They’d only met her once, for crying out loud. She felt ridiculous. She suddenly got the urge to put on her sweatshirt, but managed to suppress it. Regardless, she couldn’t help self-consciously tucking her wings firmly up against her back. “If you want me to come back some other time, that’s fine,” she said, quickly losing her nerve, “I have homework and stuff anyways and-“

Beast Boy cut her off and put his hand on her shoulder, an oddly intimate gesture considering the number of times they’d met. “Come on,” he encouraged her. “Just stick around for five minutes. We don’t bite.” Then he whispered to her, “And Raven bet me you didn’t have any powers at all.”

Raven still said nothing and, although Sabbath doubted she could’ve heard what Beast Boy had said, she noticed a black energy emanating from Raven’s eyes. Out of the corner of her vision, she spotted the same energy also enveloping Beast Boy’s shoelaces and knotting them together, completely unbeknownst to the shape shifter. But before Sabbath could say anything to him, he turned back to the Titans to say something and tripped, landing right on his butt.

“D’ow!” he cried out, more surprised than hurt. He looked down to his knotted shoelaces. “Duuuude, no fair!” He said, continuing to mumble complaints under his breath as he set to work undoing the knot. There was a brief awkward silence (broken only by Cyborg’s laughs at Beast Boy’s expense) as he did so, and Sabbath had to stifle a giggle at the childish prank and Beast Boy’s equally immature response. After a few moments, the green boy stood up and continued talking.

With a brief, dirty look at Raven, Beast Boy faced the Titans and continued, “Come on guys, she came all this way…and you can’t tell me you haven’t been just as curious as I was. You guys weren’t there that night; you didn’t see how awesome Jane’s powers are! Let’s give her a chance.”

“Like he said,” Sabbath chimed in, gaining confidence as Beast Boy stood up for her, “Five minutes, and I’m out of your hair. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

“What did you have in mind?” Robin asked.

 “Remember how when you asked what I could do I told you it was easier to show than to tell?” Sabbath asked. Robin nodded.

“Well,” she continued, taking her bag off her shoulder and pulling out the mini-iHome she’d bought from Cook’s. “I saw this music video today and it gave me a great idea. And since I’ve always sort of had a fondness for the theatrical…”

Robin cracked a small smile at the Batman reference.

Sabbath plugged her iPod into the iHome’s dock and turned it on. Luckily, the iHome had come with batteries. “Like I said though, 5 minutes, and then you’re rid of me. I just felt like we got off to a weird start the other week and wanted you to really know me before you made any choices one way or the other about me.”

“Alright, well let’s see whatcha got, little lady,” Cyborg said with an encouraging smile.

“Yeah, you can do it!” Beast boy cheered.

Starfire was smiling now, too, and Robin looked approving. Raven was the only one who had yet to say anything, but Sabbath let it go.

Sabbath’s confidence returned. She grinned and stretched her wings out wide. She knelt down to push play on her iPod, but paused and looked up at the Titans, whom she just realized were standing rather close to her.

“Um, you might want to step back a bit,” she said. The Titans looked uneasy at that, but did as she asked. Raven seemed to be watching her more closely now.

Beast Boy, the last to retreat, quickly whispered to her, “Um, is this going to be safe?”

“Of course, it’s fine; I just need a little space is all.”

Unsure how to respond, but still trying to be encouraging, Beast Boy smiled as he joined the rest of the Titans (who had retreated back to the soccer field, though their game was long forgotten). “I’ll be cheering for ya!” he called over his shoulder.

Pushing the play button, Sabbath took a deep breath. “Here goes,” she whispered to herself. Suddenly, the sound of DHT’s “Magic Melody” exploded in crisp perfection from the small speakers (the music video in the store had given her the idea, but she wanted to use her own music).

_This is DHT/_

_We’re gonna take you into a world/_

_Of darkness, and Magic._

Sabbath stood up and faced the Titans. As the music began to play, she raised her hands in front of her, the palms facing each other. A spark formed between them, and slowly it grew into a flame; first the size of a match’s flame, then a candle.

_Come to me children/_

_And follow my way/_

 It continued to grow to the size of a tennis ball, and bigger still. Eventually Sabbath dropped her left hand, leaving the flame—which was now bigger than her hand—perfectly balanced over her right palm.

_Into the world of/_

_Darkness and magic._

_With all my power/_

_I’ll show you the way/_

Her left hand now free, Sabbath made a sweeping motion over the side of the roof. When she brought her hand back up, four slabs of stone—clearly just sliced out of the massive rocks down below—followed the motion and hovered in a row about six feet away from her and a good four feet above the roof. The stones gave off a soft yellow glow, as did the hand controlling them.

_To all your dreams/_

Sabbath moved the floating rocks to form a neat row. Keeping her left hand outstretched towards them…

_Hopes and illusion._

 

she hurled the flame from her right hand. It blasted clean through the first stone slab just as the song’s tempo picked up, then turned back and flew through the one next to it. The two slabs now had flame-sized holes clean through their centers. The flame then dissipated and Sabbath carefully let the first two rock slabs drop to within an inch of the ground. Once she released them from her control, the glow left them and they fell in pieces; her power having been the only thing keeping them together after the flame hit them. She formed a neat pile of rubble on the roof between herself and the Titans before turning her attention to the ocean, keeping the remaining two slabs under her control with her left hand.

                As the music continued, she reached out to the vast body of water with her right hand, summoning a long curl of water. It rolled into a basketball-sized orb above her palm, which now gave off a slight dark blue glow (darker than Raven’s healing glow). Focusing and slowly tightening her fingers into a fist, the orb froze and became a solid ball of ice. Turning to face the stone slabs, Sabbath hurled the ice ball through the stones just as she had the flame. And, just as before, once she released the stones from her power, they fell apart into hundreds of pieces.

                _Come to me children/_

_And follow my way/_

Ignoring the rubble pile for now, Sabbath turned her attention to the ice orb that had returned to her hand like a boomerang.

 

_Into the world of/_

_Darkness and magic._

 

Quickly opening her fist, the orb instantly evaporated in a puff of steam (oops, hopefully the Titans wouldn’t know that was an accident!), which she hastily condensed back to water.

_With all my power/_

_I’ll show you the way/_

_To all your dreams/_

_Hopes and illusions._

               

                Throwing the water onto the rubble, effectively soaking it, Sabbath then reached into a pocket in her skirt and pulled out several berries she’d grabbed off the bittersweet vines at the dump. As a soft lull marked the halfway point of the song, Sabbath threw the berries onto the rubble pile and, both arms extended towards it, closed her eyes and concentrated with all her might. A greenish-yellow glow now encompassed her hands.

                _Darkness…_

_Magic…_

_Power…_

                The seeds within the berries began to grow, mere green sprouts at first, but they grew at an unnaturally quick pace and soon became over ten feet tall, standing straight up without anything but Sabbath’s power keeping them there. The massive vines curled and waved, as if alive. They resembled massive hypnotized snakes more than vines, and the greenish glow of Sabbath’s power gave them an eerie, alien look.

 

                _Dreams…_

_Hopes…_

_Illusions…_

As the music picked up again, Sabbath opened her eyes. She made the vines reach down like tentacles, pick up particularly large pieces of rock from the pile, and crush them into gravel. After letting them go on for a moment, Sabbath sliced both of her hands down through the air. The glow left the vines, though not her hands. The plants quickly dropped to the rocks, withered and died; becoming thin, brown, crumpled remains in seconds.

 

                Turning away from the rocks and dead plants, Sabbath now looked to the sky. A passing cloud grew into a storm cloud as she pulled it closer. She reached one hand up towards it and pulled a cyclone down over the rubble pile, sucking every last piece of stone and dead plant off the roof like a giant vacuum cleaner. Sabbath was careful to contain the cyclone, not wanting the Titans to be sucked into it as well. Giving it clear boundaries, the cyclone felt like no more than a strong breeze to the nearby heroes.

 

                Sabbath then stretched out her wings and took off up into the air. The cyclone lifted up off the roof, gaining altitude as Sabbath did. Her palms facing it, she directed it towards the ocean. Keeping a couple feet away from the cyclone, Sabbath took off and pushed it far out into the ocean.

 

_Come to me children/_

_And follow my way/_

_Into the world of/_

_Darkness and magic._

 

Once she was at least a football field’s length away from the tower, she dropped her hands. The cyclone dissipated and dropped all the debris into the ocean. The second half of the final chorus began, and Sabbath turned back, making a bee line to the Tower.

 

_With all my power/_

_I’ll show you the way/_

_To all your dreams/_

_Hopes and illusions._

As the final words of the song played, Sabbath stuck her landing on the roof, exactly where she’d started, and took a deep bow (for fun and comic relief, and so she didn’t have to see the Titans’ surely stunned and horrified expressions right away).

 

                The wake of air Sabbath had kicked up followed soon behind her, an impressive gust that, unfortunately, blew her hair up over her head. It hung down over her face like a curtain, parting messily when she stood up to face the Titans. Not wanting to break her concentration during her routine, she hadn’t looked at them since she pushed play. Until now.

***Beast Boy’s POV***

                Beast Boy was stunned and, for once, utterly speechless. He couldn’t believe it. Jane was more amazing than he’d ever imagined! But more importantly, her power…over the rocks…it was just like Terra’s. But Terra was dead; he’d watched her turn to stone, and Jane looked nothing like Terra. So how…?

***Raven’s POV***

                Music aside, Jane just sucked the life out of those plants. And created a mini natural disaster right here in front of us. Are her powers nothing but destructive?

***Robin’s POV***

                Wow, that was amazing! Batman should’ve had a theme song like that…Hell, I should have a theme song!

***Cyborg’s POV***

                Well OK then. Hard to believe she was beaten by a net cannon! Hee, and a mini-van. I bet she could totally take Robin in a fight.

***Starfire’s POV***

                (String of Tamaranian babble. Indecipherable.)

 

***Return to Normal/Sabbath’s POV***

Pushing her hair back with one hand as she stood, Sabbath smiled, hoping against hope that their reactions were positive. A blank look of shock and amazement was painted on each face (except Raven, who looked mildly uneasy), and for a moment there was just a stunned silence. However, as Sabbath’s smile was beginning to falter, the Titans erupted in cheers and compliments.

                “Jane, that was terrific!”

                “Well alriiiight!”

                “Stupendous!”

                “Interesting…”

                “Duuuude!”

                Never having gotten this kind of reaction before, especially from a group, Sabbath was taken by surprise. Her strained, nervous smile became genuine and she could feel happy tears begin to prick at the backs of her eyes (though she did everything in her power to keep them from spilling out). Slowly, Sabbath approached the cheering Titans. “I’ve…I’ve never shown anyone that before,” she said softly, unable to contain such strong emotions. _‘This must be what acceptance feels like,’_ she thought to herself.

                Her face was flushed and a light sweat had broken out across her skin, but the Titans didn’t seem to notice. Robin and Cyborg, both clearly impressed, offered her wide smiles and strong high-fives.

                “Hard to believe a little net cannon took you down,” Cyborg said. Sabbath flinched a little before smiling back at him. It was hard to believe, as much as it was embarrassing to relive.

                Starfire then approached, wielding another bone-crushing hug, and said, “Perfectly glorious!”

                Beast Boy managed to coax Starfire to release her death grip so he could offer Sabbath his own brief, more human (though, due to the presence of his friends, a very manly) hug. “That was great, you really are amazing,” he whispered in her ear before pulling away and high-fiving her with a louder, “Dude that was AWSOME!”’

                “Heh, thanks you guys,” Sabbath said, smiling (and luckily her already flushed skin hid the blush that resulted from Beast Boy’s soft compliment). “Really.” She began to feel slightly uncomfortable being the center of so much attention.

                “On my planet,” Starfire chimed in, “such magnificence and victory is marked with a feast.”

                “Star’s right, y’all,” Cyborg said. “Who wants pizza?”

                “I’m in!” Robin said.

                Raven was, again, silent. However, it seemed her approval was implied, since she didn’t cry, leave, or start throwing punches.

                “As long as it’s vegetarian,” Beast Boy said, although his tone said he knew very well he’d end up picking large amounts of various greasy meats off his pizza.

                “You’re a vegetarian?” Sabbath asked.

                “Yep, %100!” the green boy replied, grinning. “Are you??”

                Sabbath swore she saw stars glittering in his eyes at the mere idea of her being vegetarian. “Uh, no, not really,” she said, hating to see the disappointment he tried to conceal. “Sorry.”

                “Ah, no biggie,” he replied. “You probably just never had tofu pizza the way I make it!”

                “No one ever should!” Cyborg chimed in, having overheard. “Jane, if he ever tries to make you eat anything with the word ‘tofu’ in it, just back away slowly.” That earned him a dirty look from the shape shifter. Sabbath was beginning to suspect there was a long history of rivalry between the pro-meat and pro-soy teens. Beast Boy left Sabbath’s side then to argue with the robot-boy.

                Sabbath hung back a moment, watching the Titans walk towards the door leading down off the roof. They acted closer than friends, more like a family. A happy, close family. She wondered if she could ever really belong with them. It had been her experience that close friends like that were usually too tightly knit together and too used to each other’s’ company to allow any newcomers, even if they didn’t consciously know it.

Suddenly, Beast Boy turned away from the group and called back to Sabbath, “Hey Jane, c’mon!”

                “Yeah, what’re you waitin’ for, girl?” Added Cyborg.

                _‘Maybe I was wrong,_ ’ Sabbath thought to herself. Out loud, she replied, “Right behind you!” as she pulled on her sweatshirt, stuffed the iHome back in her bag, and jogged to join the heroes as they descended the stairs.

                Once they were out of the stairway, Sabbath recognized her surroundings. They all stood in front of the elevator she and Beast Boy had used the last time she was in the Tower. Somehow, she and all the Titans managed to pile into it comfortably (Sabbath would’ve sworn it was a much smaller elevator the last time she’d seen it). It also took a lot longer to get down to the garage than last time, too.

                Once in the garage, Sabbath also recognized the two vehicles; the large, blue and white car and the red motorcycle. The Titans approached the car, and Cyborg said, “A’ight, pile in y’all! Yo, BB, no paws on the leather interior, huh? Ah! Star-careful- that’s fresh paint!” He fretted over that car like nothing Sabbath had ever seen. Yet, everyone seemed to just ignore him and treat the car like a car.

                Raven got in first, followed by Starfire and a canine BB (despite Cyborg’s warnings). Robin took shotgun, and Cyborg took the wheel. Lastly, Sabbath slid into the backseat next to Beast Boy and shut the door behind her (carefully, so as not to agitate Cyborg).

                Cyborg started the engine and pushed a button on the dashboard that opened the garage door. The car shot out of the garage and sped towards town at a pace that, to Sabbath, seemed kind of over the speed limit. But, she figured if cops could speed, so too could superheroes (plus, she imagined this car wouldn’t look nearly as cool driving at grandma speeds). As they cruised down the road, Robin and Cyborg chatted, Raven ignored the world, and Starfire sat amused with the green dog that was now sitting in her lap. Sabbath wasn’t jealous or anything though; nope, not one bit…

Sabbath leaned against the door and peered out the window at the unfamiliar landscape whizzing by. She must’ve hit something with her elbow though, because all of a sudden, the window she’d been leaning against was opening. By the time she realized she’d been doing it, it was all the way down. Feeling the sudden breeze blowing into the car, Beast Boy shot up out of Star’s lap. He had his hind legs on the seat between her and Sabbath, and his front paws on the door where the window had just been. He stuck his head out the window, barking and drooling (eesh…Sabbath started to wonder how much of the boy’s brain remained when he turned into a dog). This earned him a few shouts and threats from Cyborg, but if he understood he paid no mind. Beast Boy’s tail was even wagging, hitting Star’s arm. It looked like it would’ve hurt, at least a little, but she simply laughed like she was being tickled. Raven wasn’t amused in the slightest, and simply turned further away.

Beast Boy stayed like that for a few minutes, and Sabbath couldn’t help but smile. Even though she was more of a cat person, she decided this dog was alright.

“B! What did I say about droolin’ on my car?!” Cyborg yelled. He hit another button on the dashboard, and the window slowly slid closed, forcing Beast Boy back into the car. If there had been room for him to resume his human form, Sabbath didn’t doubt he would have, just to yell back at Cyborg. So instead, he shot an angry look (if dogs could give angry looks) towards the robot boy before sullenly returning to Starfire’s lap, his back facing Sabbath. When Star began scratching the dog behind the ears, Sabbath had to look away yet again.

Why was she feeling like this? It was ridiculous, really. She barely knew Beast Boy, if she could even say she knew him at all. Yes, he’d been nice to her, but maybe he was one of those people who were nice to everybody? She’d seen him twice now in her whole life; she had no business staking any sort of claim on him. Plus, she’d already learned how strong Starfire was when she almost took her head off with a soccer ball. She probably couldn’t take her in a fight. But still, seeing him in Stafire’s lap, even if he was in dog form, was painful.

***Raven’s POV***

The increasing level of angst in the car was disgustingly overwhelming. Although she couldn’t read minds word for word, Raven could sense the feelings Jane had for Beast Boy, as well as how much it pained her to see him in Starfire’s lap. What was Jane’s problem? It’s not like she knew Beast Boy or anything. She’d seen him TWICE in her entire life. Was she an obsessive fan girl or something? Not that it mattered though. All that mattered was that Jane’s angst was making it hard to breathe. Raven considered opening a window, but after seeing Beast Boy jump for the one Jane had opened (like THAT had been an accident), she instantly decided against it. The only solution left was to get Beast Boy away from Starfire, at least for the rest of the car ride.

***Return to Normal/Sabbath’s POV***

Raven looked over at Beast Boy with a disgusted look on her face. “Beast Boy, you’re drooling all over the seat. And me. Take your dog slobber somewhere else,” she said, pointing away from her.

“Oh he better not be! BB..!” Cyborg warned

If dogs could look offended, Sabbath would swear Beast Boy did. He stood up in Star’s lap and turned so he was now facing Sabbath. In the blink of an eye, there was suddenly a good-sized green snake coiled up where the dog had just been. Starfire tensed up and looked about to shriek. The serpent Beast Boy seemed to sense her discomfort and so slithered into Sabbath’s lap instead.

Sabbath wasn’t afraid of snakes or anything, but she’d never exactly held one before, never mind had one crawl on her. Her hands were in her lap, which put them in the snake’s path. She withheld a flinch when he touched her skin. She’d always expected snakes to be slimy or gross somehow, but this one wasn’t. In fact, it was just the opposite. Its smooth scales felt soft and dry. Instead of curling up in her lap, as she had expected it would, the snake took a sudden turn up her left arm. It slithered up the sleeve of her hoodie, across her shoulder, around the back of her neck, and down her right arm. It stayed like that, about a foot of it hanging off her left shoulder. She lifted her right arm to bring the snake’s face closer to her own. A soft “Wow,” was all she could utter. Apparently he could turn into more than just a dog. The snake flicked its tongue out once as if in agreement before turning its head to gaze out the window.

                Finally, they pulled up to their destination. As Sabbath stepped out of the car (the Beast Boy snake still around her shoulders), she looked up and recognized the place from her late night flight ( _‘Had that been just last night?’_ Sabbath wondered). It was the pizza parlor with a balcony shaped like a pizza slice. Once everyone was out of the car, the snake slithered to the ground, where it immediately resumed human form.

“I SO wasn’t drooling!” fumed the shape shifter; his face darkening in what Sabbath assumed was anger. Or embarrassment. Sabbath had to stifle a laugh at such an outburst. The other people on the street gave him weird looks but, then again, the guy was green.

                Raven ignored his anger and simply continued walking towards the pizza parlor, but Cyborg responded with a skeptical, “Uh-huh…” as he activated a complicated-looking alarm system on the car.

                Before the green boy had a chance to come up with a good comeback, the car’s lights flashed twice to show the alarm was set, and Cyborg called out, “Come on y’all, last one in’s a rotten egg!” as he closed the car’s door and took off running. Robin ran ahead of him, clearly determined to win. Raven stepped aside as she two boys shot past her at light speed, apparently not at all interested in their games. Starfire ran to catch up to them, laughing, although Sabbath suspected she didn’t actually get the concept of the race. Beast Boy stalked towards the doors, arms crossed, muttering to himself about various aspects of the day he found to be unfair. Sabbath stood there a moment before following them in. She noticed this time that no one turned back to see if she was following. Would they really notice or care if she just turned around and headed home? _‘Probably not,’_ she thought to herself. But then again, she’d come here to get to know them and get some answers; this was not the time for self-pity. So, hitching her bag further up onto her shoulder, Sabbath followed the Titans into the restaurant.

                Inside, it was a lot busier and more crowded than she’d expected. From the outside she hadn’t even imagined this many tables could fit inside, and each one of them was occupied by at least two people. However, none of these people were dressed like comic book heroes. How could they just have disappeared? Sabbath looked around in confusion for a moment before spotting a stairway labeled “PATIO” at the other end of the room. Squeezing her way between tables, chairs, and waiters, she finally made it to the stairs.

                Fortunately, the patio was far more spacious than the main floor. There were maybe five or six round tables with red, pepperoni-like umbrellas. Only half of them were taken, so it was easy to spot the Titans. Sabbath made her way towards the teens, who were apparently right in the middle of a heated debate.

                “Pepperoni is meat!”

                “Is not! Steak is meat, ham is meat, but pepperoni is like hot dogs. And hot dogs ain’t meat!”

                “He’s correct, Beast Boy. Earth hot dogs contain more bugs and factory chemical byproducts than actual meat.”

                “…”

                “…”

                “What about chicken?”

                “Dude, seriously?” With that, Beast Boy became a green chicken. A real, live chicken, sitting right there on the table. It made its way towards Robin and stood on his menu, staring at him. There was an awkward pause as Robin began to sweat a little.

                Unable to stand the silence and the chicken’s cold stare, he finally demanded, “What?!”

                The chicken gave Robin’s left arm a good peck.

                “Ow! Hey, cut it out!” he cried, grabbing his arm. There were no holes in his glove from the bird’s attack, but Sabbath (who was still standing off to the side a bit, not wanting to interrupt or be thrown into the middle of the argument) suspected it still hurt. “Alright, fine! No chicken!”

                “I propose a large pizza with eggs, mustard, and pineapple.”

                Another lull in the conversation followed Starfire’s strange comment. Sabbath decided then was as good a time as any to approach the table. Beast Boy was the first to notice her.

                “There you are!” he cried, resuming his human form and taking his seat.

                “Yep, here I am!” Sabbath replied cheerfully.

                “We thought you got lost,” Cyborg joked.

                “Saved you a seat,” Beast Boy said, waving her towards the empty portion of bench between him and Raven.  

                “Perhaps Jane can settle our pizza topping argument?” Starfire offered.

                “Yeah!” Beast Boy exclaimed. “Tell these guys that chicken and pepperoni are meat!”

                “Um…well, pepperoni, I’m not so sure about…but chicken is definitely meat,” she replied.

                “But you can’t have a pizza without meat!” Cyborg cried.

                “’Veggie Special,’ right there, dude,” Beast Boy said, holding up his menu and smugly pointing to where it depicted the aforementioned pizza. The other Titans (except Raven, who was keeping out of the whole thing) seemed somewhat disgusted by what they saw. Even Starfire looked a little disturbed. Sabbath looked where Beast Boy was pointing, and suddenly she couldn’t blame them. It looked like a pizza, that is, it had a pizza crust and general shape to it, but other than that it was completely alien and just plain unappetizing.  It was covered in green and purple things; cucumbers, olives, eggplant, cucumber, cabbage, and was that grass?! It was an abomination and went against all that was good and natural about pizza. The cheese wasn’t even visible.

                “Um, Beast Boy,” Sabbath began. “I think you could plant that thing and an entire garden would grow. Does it even have cheese on it?”

                “Of course it has cheese! All natural soy cheese.”

                “Auhg, that’s it!” Cyborg moaned, resting his head in his hands. “What is wrong with you?!”

                “What kind of pizza do you like, Jane?” Robin asked, ignoring Cyborg’s wails of complaint.

                “Well, it’s a little weird, and most people don’t like it…” she said, unsure as to just how strict these guys were about what was and wasn’t allowed on pizza. However, her response had gained the attention of the rest of the team (except Raven). The two boys even stopped their fighting and turned to face her.

                “What is it?” Beast Boy asked, ever the curious one.

                “It involves pepperoni, so you might not like it Beast Boy,” she continued. “But my favorite’s always been pepperoni, onions, and jalapeno peppers. It’s super spicy, and most people can’t handle it.”

                Cyborg and Robin must’ve detected a hint of challenge in her voice, because they looked at each other briefly before simultaneously replying, “Sounds good!” with a glint in their eyes that said “challenge accepted!”

                Eventually, it was decided that they would order a large, half cheese, and half pepperoni-jalapeno-onion pizza. With a side of mustard. Once the pizza arrived, the rest of the afternoon seemed to fly by. Sabbath had more fun with these people she’d just met than she could ever remember. Over the course of the meal, they all talked and got to know each other. Apparently, superheroes really existed all over the world. The Titans were the local branch, but they had a cousin team up towards the northeast called Titans East (because Titans North- East didn’t sound nearly as cool). Starfire was an alien from the planet Tamaran. Robin really was the ex-sidekick of the Batman, who really did reside in Gotham City (the movies were made with his permission as a sort of auto-biography). Raven was the quiet one. Cyborg really was part robot (right down to his central nervous system). And Beast Boy was a shape shifter capable of turning into any animal in the world (and beyond). They’d established their group years ago, and had lived in the Tower ever since, protecting the city from abnormal criminals and villains whenever needed.

Sabbath was enchanted. She couldn’t believe she’d moved to a town with real, live super heroes. But they didn’t act like she imagined super heroes would, even teenaged ones. They bickered and challenged each other like siblings, yet always seemed to be on generally good terms with each other. Sabbath began to feel like one of them. She joined in their joking and story-telling. She mediated the fight over the last slice. She joined Starfire and Beast Boy in a vote as to who handled the spicy pizza the best. Overall, she had a great time. She didn’t even feel the suffocating heat of her sweatshirt like she usually did (and luckily no one asked her why she was wearing it. The Titans didn’t seem too big on probing questions. She liked that about them). It was the kind of day that was so much fun, it didn’t seem like it could ever end. Yet all the while, Sabbath could feel the sun slowly beginning to lower in the sky. She knew, sooner or later, she’d have to go back to the Millers.

                But for the time being, she decided to forget all that. She blocked out the world of homework, impatient parents, and a setting sun. Looking around the table, it seemed that’s what the Titans were doing as well, although Sabbath suspected they lived every day of their lives like that. She doubted they had any problems at all; they had the perfect life. Looking around the table, she noted the smiling faces, laughter, cheering, belch contests, and harmless dirty looks. And here she was, in the middle of it all, even if only for today.

                After what felt like only minutes, the pizza was gone, glasses were drained, and it was time to leave. They all stood up from the table and headed back towards the stairs off the balcony. However, no one had paid the bill. The waitress had brought it to them of course, and Robin had looked it over and quickly jotted something down, but had never produced any form of payment. OK, Sabbath didn’t care how rich they were; no one could go to a restaurant and just not pay. Feeling awkward Sabbath hung back a moment, unsure how to handle the situation. Surely they wouldn’t just ditch the check, right?

                Once again, Beast Boy was looking out for her. “Hey, come on, what are you waiting for?”

                “Um, don’t we have to pay?” she replied awkwardly.

                “Oh, no, it’s cool. We have a deal with the city; we keep them safe from all the things the cops can’t handle, and they pay us by not making us pay for stuff. Around here, a Titan’s signature is as good as cash!” he assured her with a smile.

                “Yo, come one y’all! Last one to the car has to do dishes for a month!” Cyborg yelled out. But before Sabbath could answer either Titan, and before anyone even reached the stairs, an inhuman, blood-curdling screech emanated from the next block over, freezing everyone’s blood in their veins. 

* * *

 

 


	8. Fighting As A Titan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 7 of my OC Teen Titans Fanfic, The Second Curse. If you have not done so, please read the Prologue first, and then the chapters that precede this one. Note: there is no First Curse; this is not a sequel to anything. Hope you enjoy! : )
> 
> PS. Now the story should start to pick up. Keep in mind, chapters with Titans in them will take me a little longer to write, since it involves having 5 extra voices in my head (also, college tends to interfere with one’s schedule). But to make up for it, those chapters will probably end up being longer.

* * *

 

 

An animal-like howl echoed from the next block over, freezing everyone’s blood in their veins. It was unlike anything Sabbath had ever heard in her life. _‘What was that?’_ she wondered to herself. She thought back to the time she’d fought (or rather, tried to fight) that big rock thing; “Cinderblock,” the Titans had called it. It too had howled and roared, but not like this. No, this was something else.

                “Plasmus,” Robin said, a grim expression on his face as he stared out across the street, as if he could see through the buildings blocking his view.

                “’Plasmus?’” Sabbath asked quietly, her gaze following everyone else’s towards the source of the sound.

                “Giant snot monster,” Beast Boy clarified, a disgusted look on his face. Sabbath didn’t know what to make of that, not wanting to imagine anything that gross.

                Another screech echoed down the street, this time seeming closer than the last. By now the screams of citizens accompanied it’s howls, as well as various crashes and car horns.

                “Titans, GO!” Robin cried. Then, without even looking back to ensure they were following him, the boy took a running start and leaped over the edge of the patio. There was at least an entire story’s fall down to the ground. Panicked and speechless, Sabbath could do nothing except run and look over the edge of the patio. Robin had landed in a crouch, appearing completely unharmed. He then immediately stood up and started running towards the screams.

                Not needing to be told twice, the rest of the Titans followed his lead and vaulted over the ledge. Apparently, Starfire and Raven could fly, and Beast boy turned into an Eagle, but what about Cyborg? Amazed, Sabbath simply watched as the two boys jumped off the patio, one after the other. Surprisingly, Beast Boy clamped his claws around Cyborg’s shoulders and flew him down to the sidewalk. Once on the ground, Cyborg took off running, accompanied by a now green cheetah. It seemed Beast Boy could change in the blink of an eye.

                However, before Sabbath had time to get lost in her thoughts, Starfire turned back in mid-air and called back to Sabbath, “Jane-friend! Assist us!”

                “Right behind you!” Sabbath yelled, though she began to wonder exactly what kind of assistance she could actually be to them. Then a more immediate problem arose; how to get down from the balcony as quickly as possible? Surely she couldn’t just jump like Robin had. Robin was a legendary ninja, a boy wonder! His stunts were definitely not to be tried at home. She could fly, but there were still people on the balcony, not to mention the crowd gathering down on the street. It seemed people had relaxed, having realized the Titans were on the job, and so decided to sit back and watch the show. Her only option was to go back through the restaurant and use the stairs. So, kicking her back pack under the table she’d just been sitting at, Sabbath turned and ran full speed down the stairs. Unfortunately, the restaurant was still pretty crowded. It felt rude, but she had to push and shove her way through the crowd.

                “Excuse me, pardon me,” she yelled as she ran, trying not to push anyone over. “Emergency! Titan coming through!” She wasn’t totally sure why she added that last part, it had just come out before she could stop it. But it was nonsense; she wasn’t a Titan. Nonetheless, it had felt good saying it. It felt right.

                Bursting through the front doors, Sabbath turned left and ran down the sidewalk in the direction she’d seen the Titans go. Coming to the intersection, she turned right, following the increasingly loud sounds of destruction and fighting. Rounding the final corner, Sabbath came upon an incredible sight.

                There before her stood a giant, purple…well, snot monster. Beast boy was right, that’s pretty much what it was; a giant, purple snot monster with arms, legs, and a screeching mouth full of jagged teeth. Boy was it loud! But even more incredible than the two-story tall booger were the people fighting it. A green elephant charged it head on, Cyborg blasted it with some kind of blue-light gun on his arm, Robin threw explosives (some of which froze large portions of the monster on contact), Raven picked up cars and rubble with that black energy of hers and hurled them at the thing, and Starfire just plain beat the crap out of it; kicking, punching, shooting green lasers and orbs. The Titans were attacking it as a team, and seemed to be doing some damage. However, they took some damage themselves. The monster deflected a chunk of cement back at Raven, hitting her in the shoulder. Starfire got tossed into a nearby building. Beast Boy got repeatedly shot at with streams of purple goo. But they kept at it. The monster screeched and howled in protest, stomping and swinging clumsily at their quick forms. Every once in a while, it spewed purple slime on them, temporarily gluing them to the ground or just plain grossing them out. It seemed to be able to regenerate portions of its body that were frozen or blasted away, only to have them blasted away once more.

                Leaping up and plunging a bow-staff into the beast’s chest, Robin climbed up and over its shoulder, landing on the ground behind it. Looking up, he noticed Sabbath’s arrival (and the dumb, awe-struck look on her face). “Jane, come on! Give us a hand!” he yelled, snapping her out of it. Unfortunately, his yelling had gained the monsters attention. It turned around and spewed gallons and gallons of purple sludge, completely burying him.

                “Robin!” she cried, scared for him once again. He didn’t reply.

                Well that did it. This monster had just messed with the wrong Titans. She’d make it pay dearly for hurting her new friends. Taking off her sweatshirt and tying it tightly around her waist, Sabbath stretched out her black bat wings, cracked her knuckles, and said, “Alright, snot monster, you asked for it.”

                The monster now turned its attention to her, satisfied that Robin had been taken out of the game. Sabbath flew straight up in the air, getting eye level with, well, where its eyes would be if it had any. Instead it seemed to have massive, yellow blisters (eewww…). It looked at her curiously (even without eyes, it was clear that’s what it was doing), as if not sure what to make of her. The other Titans had stopped in their assaults to watch her. After a moment it grinned, deciding she wasn’t a threat. It raised an arm to swat her down to the ground.

“Jane, look out!” Beast Boy cried. But she was stronger than he gave her credit for. Anger in her eyes, Sabbath summoned flames to encompass her entire arm (though not burning her new arm warmers!). Before the monster could hit her with its slimy, dripping fist, Sabbath punched it with her flaming arm. Fire exploded outward from her fist, racing up the monster’s arm. Plasmus recoiled and screamed in pain, desperately flailing its flaming, smoking appendage. The stench was horrible, but Sabbath focused and forced the flames to stay there (she could make flames stay on the surface of water if she tried hard enough. They were fueled purely by her own energy, not necessarily the surface they touched) as long as possible. After a few minutes she evaporated the flames, wanting to see if they’d done any damage.

***Crowd’s POV***

“Thank God, the Titans are here!”

“Yeah! They’ll stop that…um, whatever it is!”

“Hey, look, is that a new Titan?”

“Yeah, I think so. She looks kinda creepy though.”

“Did she just set that thing on fire?”

“Wow!”

“Hey, check it out, Titans got a new recruit!”

“Yeah, and she totally kicks butt! Not like Starfire though, Starfire’s the best.”

“No way, man, Raven’s the best.”

“I think Beast Boy’s the coolest!”

“Yeah, you would.”

 “My mom will never believe this!”

“Betcha this goes viral on YouTube!”

Etc., etc.

***Return to Normal/Sabbath’s POV***

Satisfyingly enough, the monster’s arm was blackened, and significantly thinner than its other arm. Sabbath watched it try to regenerate itself, but the charred surface of its arm prevented it. It turned back to face her and threw back its head, screeching in rage. The other Titans continued to watch, including Robin, who’d been dug out of the monster’s goo by a teary-eyed Starfire. They wanted to see if she was actually capable of taking it down by herself- which would have been absolutely incredible- but were ready to join back in if the situation demanded.

Sabbath smirked at the monster’s rage. “Heh, that was interesting. So, you burn, huh? Let’s see if you’re water soluble too!” After all the energy she’d exerted over the course of the day, she was starting to feel tired. With a good portion of her energy already depleted, she couldn’t summon enough water out of the air to do the beast any real damage. Luckily, she’d spotted a fire hydrant when she’d turned the corner. Keeping eye contact with Plasmus, Sabbath stretched an arm out behind her towards the hydrant. It immediately exploded up off the pavement and fell back down with a metallic clang. A geyser of water erupted out of the ground where it had been, but instead of splashing down to the ground, it turned and rushed towards Sabbath’s outstretched hand. Using almost all of what was left of her strength, Sabbath strained to thrust her arm around, forcing the massive (and actually quite heavy) blast of water right into the monster’s face.

If it had eyes, Sabbath imagined they’d be the size of its head right about then. It opened its mouth to scream in terror, but didn’t get the chance. The force of the gushing geyser slammed right into its head. It stumbled a few steps backwards before toppling over completely, splattering purple goo everywhere. The water kept coming, and Sabbath directed it to follow the beast down to the ground. Once it fell, Sabbath pulled the water back and re-routed it to the nearest sewer drain, since she found she couldn’t stop it from flowing (oops). The monster didn’t move, seemingly out for the count.

Slowly lowering herself to the ground, Sabbath then cautiously approached it’s still form, her exhausted legs threatening to give out from under her. Expecting to see an unconscious slime ball, she got the shock of her life when she saw a mostly-naked man lying unconscious in a ring of purple slime. The other Titans came up behind her for a closer look as well, though didn’t seem nearly as surprised.

 “Um, what the hell?” Sabbath asked, totally thrown for a loop.

“Plasmus is actually a man,” a somewhat slimy Robin replied, standing supported by Starfire’s inhumanly strong arm. The redheaded alien then bent to retrieve Robin’s bow-staff- which had been semi- buried in the goo- while still managing to hold the boy upright. “But he’s only human when he’s sleeping,” Robin continued. “Wake him up, and he becomes the monster you just saw.”

Suddenly too overwhelmed and exhausted to argue, Sabbath’s knees began to shake. She knew she was about to collapse, but was too tired to do anything about it. She hadn’t used this much energy in one day since, well, ever. This was a first. There was that practice session at the dump, then the show at Titan’s Tower, and now she’d just taken down a giant snot monster-man. Not to mention her late night flight around the city the night before.

However, before she could hit the ground, Sabbath felt strong, yet lean arms around her, standing her up but not releasing her. Looking up, she saw Beast Boy staring into her eyes with a mix of worry and awe. “Jane, you ok?” he asked. “Dude! I can’t believe you took out Plasmus with two hits! It was like, Boom, Splash! Out for the count! That was amazing!” he continued, too excited to hold back.

Sabbath could do nothing but smile weakly as she replied, “Thanks, but it wasn’t just me. I saw you guys do a good amount of damage yourselves. And I’m fine, just kind of over did it today…” Her eyes started to droop, and Beast Boy’s comfortable embrace wasn’t helping. She decided walking would be the best way to wake herself up, even though she wasn’t positive she could trust her own legs at this point.

Then, when she looked over Beast Boy’s shoulder, she noticed the sun already half hidden below the horizon and panicked. Suddenly not as tired, she stepped out of Beast Boy’s arms and quickly said, “Sorry to leave so suddenly, but I have to get home. If I’m not back by 6pm I’m worse than dead. Thanks for everything, you guys, it was great to finally get to know you. See you around!”

Before she could take more than three shaky steps back towards the pizza parlor and the main street, Cyborg offered, “Hey! Want us to give you a lift?”

“Um,” Sabbath hesitated. She didn’t want to bother them, make them go out of their way for someone they’d just met; but considering her current physical state, she decided to accept the offer. “Yeah, if it’s not too far out of your way.”

“It’s no problem at all,” Robin replied, still supported by a somewhat worried Starfire. “Where do you live?”

“Just past the High School,” she replied.

“The cheap, public one!” Beast Boy chimed in; remembering her exact words from the first time they’d met. Sabbath couldn’t help but smile at the memory of that night.

“Oh yeah, I know where that is,” Cyborg responded, much like Beast Boy had. “It’s actually not too far from here.”

Smiling gratefully at the Titans, Sabbath joined them as they walked back to the car as a group. As she walked, however, she became conscious once again of all the bystanders watching them, and of the fact that her sweatshirt was still tied around her waist. Once they arrived at the car, Sabbath stopped a moment to quickly untie it and pull it on, though she didn’t bother to zip it up like she usually did. She then slid into the backseat after Raven and Starfire, and a kitten Beast Boy jumped into her lap before she shut the door.

“Oh, wait!” she exclaimed before Cyborg had a chance to start the car. “I think I forgot my bag at the table.” As she pushed open the door, Beast Boy unexpectedly jumped from her lap, turned back into an eagle, and made a beeline for the balcony. He returned moments later, holding her bag in one claw. Once back at the car, he turned back into a human in the blink of an eye. He stretched out his hand, offering her the backpack, and bowed slightly as he said, “Your bag, milady.” Sabbath hadn’t even had a chance to open the door all the way.

Smiling at Beast Boy’s butler impersonation (and adorableness), she took the bag and responded, “Why thank you, kind sir.” Sabbath thought she saw his face flush a dark, dark green for a moment, but didn’t have time to be certain, as the shape shifter once again resumed his feline form and jumped into her lap. Was he purring?

Placing her bag on the floor of the car to make more room for the kitten, Sabbath automatically began scratching the cat behind the ears as she tiredly gazed out the window. She couldn’t help it; it had been a long time since she’d had a pet. Plus, Beast Boy didn’t seem to mind, he just purred louder.

All too soon, Cyborg was pulling over in front of the High School. “Alright Jane, which way from here?”

Sabbath looked up and gazed around the familiar neighborhood a moment before pointing him in the right direction. Once they turned onto her street, Sabbath froze. “Aw, crap!” she whispered. Her parents’ van had just pulled into the driveway. “Uh, here’s fine Cyborg,” she said. The robot boy pulled the car over and parked four houses down from her own.

“So this is you?” he asked, looking up at the house they’d stopped at.

“Er, no,” she corrected. “That’s me,” she said, pointing towards her house. “But my folks just pulled in.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Robin asked.

“It is if I was supposed to be spending the day shopping with a couple girls I met at school,” she replied. The Titans didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. “Anyways, I better go. Thanks again for the ride, guys. I really don’t think I would’ve had the energy to make the trek home.”

“What if you flew?” Robin asked. “Wouldn’t it have been shorter to just make a straight line home?”

“It would have, but look around you. It’s still light out.”

“So…?”

“I don’t fly during the day unless it’s an emergency. I don’t really relish the idea of being shot down or scaring half the town into a panic.”

“Has…that been a problem?” Robin asked, looking concerned.

“Well, what would you do if you saw what appeared to be a giant bat flying over your house?” Sabbath asked him. Her face flushed red as she suddenly realized who she was talking to. She muttered a brief “never mind” and quickly turned to open the door.

Because he’d been in her lap, Beast Boy had to get out first. Once on the sidewalk, he immediately resumed his human form. He offered her his hand as she climbed out of the car, but she held on to the door jamb instead, not wanting to seem totally helpless. She hitched her bag up onto her shoulder and shut the car’s door behind her.

“So…” Beast Boy began awkwardly, not knowing what to say exactly, but not wanting her to just leave like that. Then an idea came to him. “Hey, you said you’d be in trouble if you were late getting home, right? What if you just said you ran into us? Wouldn’t it be easier than making something up?”

“You would think so,” Sabbath replied. “But unfortunately, the Millers are about as closed-minded as it gets. They’re nice people, but I can’t tell them about any of this. I can’t even mention my powers around them without things getting awkward and uncomfortable,” she said sadly, watching her foster parents unload groceries from the trunk. “I can’t even imagine what they’d think of you guys.”

“Oh…” Beast Boy said, again unsure how to respond.

After a few moments, she continued glumly, “Bet you ten bucks that they don’t even hug me when I go over there.”

“Huh? What makes you say that?”

“They never hug me. That’s how uncomfortable they are with what I am. The only time they ever hugged me was…was the day they adopted me. Apparently, all my papers said was “special needs”. But I was the only one at the age they were looking for. I had a hoodie on every time they’d visited, so they couldn’t see my wings. I guess they just figured I was autistic or something. But once they signed all the paperwork, they hugged me in celebration as they told me they were my new family. But then they gasped and recoiled like there was something gross and wrong with me. Mr. Miller slid my sweatshirt down off my shoulders, and that’s when they saw. At first the true shock they felt was plain on their faces. But they’d signed paperwork, there was no turning back. So they played it off like it was nothing and went right back to smiling. But from that day on I knew everything was a big act. It still is,” she explained dryly. There was no emotion showing on her face. If there were, it would’ve been solid pain. Or anger. Or both. But Sabbath never let anyone see her cry, so for the moment she had to hold all emotions inside, lest an ugly one escape.

Beast Boy was speechless, so instead he gave a physical answer. Without warning, he wrapped her in the biggest, warmest hug in the world. He looped his arms under hers and around her back, fully embracing her; wings, backpack, and all. He pulled her tightly against him and just held her there. Her wing’s flinched at the sudden contact before relaxing against his arms. Sabbath hadn’t been prepared for anything like that. Her emotional barricade was already at maximum capacity holding back painful memories. But now, add exhaustion and Beast Boy’s sweetness to the equation and she was completely overwhelmed. She couldn’t help it; tears silently flooded down her cheeks as she briefly rested her head on his shoulder. No one had ever hugged her like that, ever. She couldn’t speak, so she just returned the embrace. After decades or seconds –Sabbath couldn’t tell which, just that it wasn’t long enough-, he released her. She quickly scrubbed the tear tracks from her face and smiled.

“I’d better go,” she said softly, pointing towards her house where her foster parents were now unlocking the front door. She then turned to wave good-bye to the car of Titans and said more loudly, “See you around! And thanks again!”

Raven ignored her, Robin and Starfire waved back, and Cyborg tooted the car’s horn. As Sabbath turned to walk down the sidewalk, she heard Beast Boy re-enter the backseat –this time in human form now that there was enough room- to a barrage of teasing and whistling from the other two boys. She knew they were only messing with him, and that they’d all laugh about it later, yet she could still imagine how dark the shape shifter’s face must be right about then.

Sabbath was still smiling when she got to her driveway. Meanwhile, the Millers were still in the process of loading grocery bags out of the van.

Unfortunately, Cyborg’s car horn had drawn Mrs. Miller’s attention. She paused and looked up from what she was doing. “Sabbath? Is that you, honey?”

“Hi, Mom!” she replied cheerfully.

“Sabbath, sweetie! You’re home! Oh and just in time! Be a dear and take these bags inside?” Mrs. Miller said, handing Sabbath a pair of grocery bags. The last thing she wanted to do was carry heavy bags, but since she couldn’t exactly explain how she’d drained 95% of her energy, she simply took them without complaint. As she walked up the steps to the front door, she passed Mr. Miller, who was on his way out.

“Hello, Sabbath, glad you’re home! Dinner’s in half an hour, ok?” he said as he headed back to the van for more bags.

Just then, Sabbath heard the smooth sound of the Titans’ car drive by behind her. She turned around on the front steps to watch them go. They smiled and waved, and she smiled back (waving would’ve raised questions from the Millers). Beast Boy was the only one, except for Raven, who wasn’t as cheerful. He’d watched, she knew he had. He’d seen how the Millers interacted with her. She could tell he felt bad for her now, but she really didn’t want to be pitied. She wasn’t sure why she’d even told Beast Boy that sob story. Yes, it was one hundred percent true, but why bother telling anyone? She must’ve been tired enough to where the filter between her brain and her mouth was completely dissolved. She couldn’t believe she’d also blabbed about being adopted, she’d never told anyone that! Crap! Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut? At least he didn’t know her real name. If he knew that, in addition to the fact that she was adopted, he might find out the alarming number of times she’d changed families in the past few years, and that would open up a whole other can of awkward-worms.

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Sabbath trudged into the house and brought the bags into the kitchen. Normally, she’d have gone back out to carry more (why they’d bought so many groceries tonight, she was too tired to ask), but she could barely keep her eyes open. Placing the grocery bags on the counter and grabbing a water bottle from the nearly-empty (guess that’s why) fridge, Sabbath turned and dragged herself up to her third-floor bedroom.

***Beast Boy’s POV***

Jane just continued to amaze him. He still couldn’t get over how she’d taken Plasmus down so easily! She really was like Terra; Terra was powerful too. Actually, Terra probably could’ve taken down that booger with ONE hit with no problem (but Raven was WRONG; Jane wasn’t weak! Maybe she just wasn’t used to fighting monsters!). She didn’t physically resemble Terra, but everything else about her did. Maybe that was why it had broken his heart when she’d told him about her foster parents. Unfortunately, he knew all too well what rejection was like; he’d grown up a green shape shifter! He also knew what it was like to be adopted. The Doom Patrol had taken him in when he was little and been like his family. They’d accepted him as he was, though. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Jane, never finding anyone who cared about her. She’d acted so surprised when he’d hugged her (he still wasn’t sure why he’d done that, and it didn’t look like he’d be living it down any time soon), like she’d never been hugged before! She was just one big mystery after another. He was happy they’d gotten together again today. But just when he finally felt like he was getting to know her, she told him a whole new chapter of her life he’d known nothing about.

He had to see her again. He just HAD to. And he had knew he would; soon.

**Return to Normal/Sabbath’s POV***

Once in her room, Sabbath shut the door firmly behind her, tossed her bag on her bed, set the water bottle on her nightstand, and shrugged out of her sweatshirt. Upon examination she found that, despite the fact it had spent most of the day tied around her waist, her sweatshirt had still managed to accumulate a few smudges of purple goo. Gross. Flinging the hoodie into the laundry hamper, Sabbath walked over and opened her closet to examine herself in the full-length mirror on the inside of the door. Eesh. Maybe this was why the Millers hadn’t hugged her earlier 9though she doubted they’d even really noticed her appearance). She was surprised Beast Boy had dared to. Her hair was a total mess. Her face was streaky from tears and her eyes had massive black circles under them. She was a lot paler than usual, and dots of purple goo were congealing on her shirt, skirt, and boots. Overall, she just plain looked like crap.

Shuddering at the realization of exactly how much Plasmus there was on her clothes (her brand new clothes at that!), Sabbath quickly undressed and threw everything in the laundry hamper before walking into her bathroom for an extremely thorough shower. Half an hour later, Sabbath exited the bathroom and changed into her most comfortable pajamas.

Unwrapping her now curly hair from its towel, Sabbath sat down on her bed to empty her bag before passing out for the next decade (too tired to even care about missing dinner). The first thing she pulled out was a handful of plastic shopping bags. She threw those on the floor, telling herself she’d toss them in the trash tomorrow. Next, she pulled out the shirt she’d had on that morning and threw it in the clothes hamper. Then she pulled out her jeans, careful to shake them out before throwing them in the laundry, knowing her house key was in them somewhere. But as she did so, something much bigger than a house key clattered to the floor. What the-?

Setting the jeans and empty back pack aside, Sabbath bent down to retrieve the object. It was a palm-sized, fat, yellow disk. It had a belt clip on the back, a stubby, black antenna on the top, a few rubber buttons on left side, and…

A big, black “T” on the front.

_‘Huh?’_ Sabbath wondered to herself. ‘ _What is this thing?’_ Whatever it was, the T logo definitely determined it was Titan property. But how had it gotten in her bag? Had it fallen out of someone’s pocket at the restaurant or something? Crap! She didn’t want them to think she’d stolen something from them! But what to do? She was running out of excuses to get out of the house with no set destination. She could say she was going over a friend’s house for a bit tomorrow, that they’d wanted to borrow a book of hers, but the Millers would want to know where the friend lived and why Sabbath couldn’t just give it to them at school on Monday. Double-crap!

Just then, the thing started to beep and hiss with static. Had she broken it somehow? But how?! She was just holding it! Oh, man, that’s right; she’d dropped it! Oh crap oh crap oh-

*fzzt-fzzzzt* *kshhhhh* -“ _Beast Boy calling Jane_ …-” the device whispered, before returning to more static. Wait, what did it just say? Beast Boy? Was this thing some kind of walkie-talkie?

Sabbath noticed one of the 5 buttons on the left side was flashing. Pressing it on instinct, figuring it would let her talk back, she was surprised when the top flipped open and revealed a round screen. Beast Boy’s green face was now smiling up at her from the device. A live video feed? This apparently wasn’t your average walkie-talkie.

“Ah, there you are!” he said cheerfully. He acted as if everything were normal.

Sabbath, however, was becoming really confused. Had she already fallen asleep? Was she dreaming? “…Beast Boy?” she managed to whisper. “What is this thing? What’s going on?”

“It’s a communicator,” he explained. “Titans use em to talk to each other. Kind of like a walkie-talkie, but cooler!” then his voice and expression changed as if he’d just realized something. “Whoa, your hair’s different.”

Sabbath choked. “You can see me?!” she gasped, desperately shoving her palm over the device, in hopes of covering the camera, wherever it was. If she weren’t so tired, she probably would’ve thought of the video feed working both ways as soon as she saw it.

“Haha! It’s cool,” the shape shifter continued. But he was wrong, it wasn’t cool at all. Not only was her hair a curling mess, but the shower hadn’t exactly washed away the hideous bags from under her bloodshot eyes, just the little make up that had been making her look somewhat civil. Regardless of what Beast Boy said, Sabbath kept her palm over the communicator.

***Beast Boy’s POV***

                So Jane had curly hair. Even though it was another thing about her that was a total opposite to Terra, he still found it pretty. Apparently, he’d caught her after a shower, too. Her hair was clearly still wet, a few stray locks plastered to her forehead. Her freshly washed skin glowed, making her eyes look even darker by comparison (though he could still detect the exhaustion barely concealed in them).

Good thing she’d covered the communicator though, or she’d have seen him blushing at the sight of her. Note to self; don’t call people right after they take a shower. Not that he’d had any way of knowing that or anything; it was just a lucky coincidence. Wait, lucky? No, no, he didn’t mean lucky, that’d be embarrassing. What he meant was-

***Return to Normal/Sabbath’s POV As a Result of Beast Boy’s Incessant Mental Blather***

“So who’s is this?” Sabbath asked. “And how did it get in my bag? How did you know I had it?” Her exhausted mind was now on overload, spiraling with questions.

“It’s yours,” he replied, sounding slightly taken aback at all her questions. Why was this so confusing to her? “I gave it to you. Remember when I went and grabbed your bag for you before we left the pizza place?”

“Yeah…”

“I slipped this in it while I was up there. But even if I hadn’t put it there, these things all have tracking devices in em, like in spy movies!” Even though his face wasn’t visible, Sabbath could tell he was grinning.

But so this was hers? “Why’d you give me this?” she asked.

“Because, well, after seeing what you did to Plasmus today, I thought we could use your help again sometime…”

“But I’m no Titan. I might be a little weird, but I’m not a superhero.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t help. And technically, by receiving an authentic Titan communicator from an authentic Teen Titan, you ARE an official, honorary member. Well, you will be once I tell Robin.”

Sabbath didn’t know what to say. All she could do was slowly remove her hand from the communicator. She had to see his face, had to know he was serious. “Really?” she managed to whisper. She couldn’t believe she was a real Titan!

“Totally!” Beast Boy replied, his smile growing at her awed expression.

Then, in the background, Sabbath heard someone yell, “Yo, BB! Who you talkin’ to in there? You better not have brought another couch-destroying monster into this Tower!”

Couch-destroying…? Sabbath was too tired to ask.

Now it was Beast Boy’s turn to smother his communicator. Did he just shove it under a blanket…? Sabbath suspected as much, but couldn’t be sure. Then came his muffled reply, “Dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I wasn’t talking to anyone. And don’t call Silky a monster!” Then, after a moment, Beast Boy’s face returned to the screen. “Heh, sorry about that,” he said, this time keeping his voice lowered to a whisper.

“Talk to yourself later, man,” Cyborg persisted. “It’s movie time!”

For a moment, Beast Boy’s face lit up. He looked ready to jump up and race Cyborg to the living room at the mention of “movie time”, but then seemed to remember he had Sabbath on the line. “Uh…” he began awkwardly.

“Go ahead, Beast Boy. I’m about ready to pass out anyway. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yeah, definitely!” he said excitedly.

“Yo, B, c’mon man!”

“In a minute!” Beast Boy yelled back over his shoulder. Then facing the communicator again, he quickly added, “Oh, and to call me or any of the other Titans, just flip the communicator open and press a channel button while saying ‘Jane calling’ whoever it is you’re looking for. The channel buttons are the ones on the side that light up. Robin’s channel 1, Cyborg’s channel 2, Raven’s channel 3, I’m channel 4, and Star’s channel 5.”

Sabbath knew she’d never remember that in her current mental state. She could feel the last of her energy being used up just sitting upright and making coherent conversation. But she nodded in agreement nonetheless and said, “Alright, later, Beast Boy.” She could feel her eyelids become heavy once again, and had to stifle a yawn. Then quickly remembering her manners, she added, “And thanks…for everything.”

Understanding her completely (which was completely out of character for the shape shifter) and beginning to see how tired she was, Beast Boy smiled as he replied, “You’re welcome. And welcome to the Titans.”

Tiredly grinning as she turned out the lights, the last thing Sabbath heard the communicator whisper before she snapped it shut was, “Sweet dreams, Jane.”

* * *

 


	9. An Unforeseen Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 8 of my OC Teen Titans Fanfic, The Second Curse. If you have not done so, please read the Prologue first, and then the chapters that precede this one. Note: there is no First Curse; this is not a sequel to anything. Hope you enjoy! : )

* * *

 

 

The next day was, unfortunately, a Sunday. As such, Sabbath was required to get up early to attend Church with the Millers, regardless of how dead she still felt. She’d gotten about nine hours of sleep that night by skipping dinner, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough. She’d drained almost 100% of her energy the day before. It was times like these she cursed the fact that her powers were directly connected to her vital energy. But on the bright side, her sleep had been blissfully nightmare-free; she figured the Dark Man was more than pleased with her. Looking back, she still couldn’t believe how much she’d done yesterday. She smiled faintly at the memories of her clumsy performance at the Tower, of having pizza with the Titans, of defeating that Plasmus thing, of how great the Titans thought she was, and then of how Beast Boy had invited her to join the team. Beast Boy…

                Sabbath sighed as she lost herself in thought, but a sharp elbow to the ribs from Mrs. Miller quickly brought her back to the present when she failed to stand at the proper cue in Mass. She stood without complaint. Attending mass was part of a deal she’d made with the Millers soon after they’d adopted her; she’d stay on the Principal’s List in school and attend Mass, and they wouldn’t make her go to Catholic School. She never thought it was a bad thing, except for certain Sunday mornings when she really would’ve preferred to sleep in; mornings like this one. But all it took was the thought of plaid skirts, white blouses, and navy knee socks and she was awake and ready to head out for Church.

                The priest stopped talking for a moment, and Sabbath took her cue to sit. The deal was that she would attend Mass, but no one could force her to pay attention, and unless her brain was completely on another planet (a green, fanged, grinning planet perhaps?), it wasn’t hard to follow the pattern of kneeling, sitting, and standing. As the sermon continued, Sabbath let her gaze wander the building’s architecture; it really was beautiful. But once she remembered where she was, her brain imagined a large, purple snot monster crashing through the wall and spew slime all over the priest. It was nothing personal, just that she hated having to go there against her will. If Plasmus just happened to bust in, Mass would be cancelled, right? And then the Titans would have to come and fight him, and all the Catholic church-goers would flee in terror, screeching about unholy demons and the apocalypse…Sabbath grinned.

                Eventually, it was time for the closing prayer. As the pews cleared out, Sabbath heaved a silent sigh of relief. Now, her obligations fulfilled for the day, she could go home and crawl right back into bed. Yes, sleep was definitely on the agenda. Hm, but then there was technically homework to attend to…No, homework could wait. Sleep came before homework. Despite how much she’d slept that night, she still wasn’t quite herself.

                In the ride home, Sabbath allowed her eyes to drift shut for just a moment, but was surprised when, in the blink of an eye, they were pulling up the driveway and cutting the engine. She must’ve been more tired than she thought. Once inside the house, Sabbath mumbled something about homework and reading before trudging up the two flights of stairs to her bedroom. She sighed.

                Tossing off her sweatshirt and kicking her sneakers into the corner, Sabbath put her pajamas back on and slipped into bed. She’d get up in a few hours, she told herself, and get all of her homework done before dinner…

*BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBE-*

                Sabbath angrily swatted at her alarm clock’s snooze button. God she hated that thing. Unfortunately, it was necessary for waking her up in the mornings. Needless to say, after having been with her for several months, the snooze button now had impressions of three fingers melted into it. Sabbath was surprised it even still worked.

                Wait, why was the alarm going off? It wasn’t set to go off until Monday morning. Was it possible she’d slept ALL DAY SUNDAY? Wow, that was a first. Looking at her alarm clock’s annoyingly cheerful blue screen to clarify the time and date, Sabbath saw that it was in fact Monday morning. Amazed with how much she’d slept, Sabbath started to feel a little concerned (since it couldn’t possibly be healthy for her to require that much sleep), until she noticed how good she felt. Usually Monday mornings were like any other school morning; dull, painful, and just plain too early in the day. But today she actually felt refreshed. She’d regained all the energy she’d lost over the weekend, and it only took about 20 hours of sleep.

                Going through her morning routine automatically, Sabbath realized as she stuffed notebooks into her backpack that she hadn’t gotten any homework done. Oops. Maybe the teachers at this school weren’t the type to care about homework. Plus, there was only about a month left of the school year now, so what did homework really matter at this point?

                As she reached for her purse, she noticed how light it felt. Then she remembered she’d dumped everything into that little backpack she’d used that weekend. Retrieving the cloth knapsack from the floor by her bed, Sabbath reached in and pulled out her iPod, house key, and wallet. She also pulled out the round yellow communicator Beast Boy had given her. Sabbath thought for a moment as she looked it over, still not quite believing everything that had happened. Was she really a Teen Titan now? Well, if she were, she figured she should probably have the device on her at all times. Stuffing it in her purse without a second thought, Sabbath pulled on her sweatshirt, hiked her backpack onto her shoulder, and headed out for school.

                The day dragged by at an incredibly sluggish pace. Sabbath needn’t have worried so much about homework; it seemed none of the teachers really cared. By the time fourth period, Geometry, rolled around, the day was only half over and Sabbath was already bored to tears.

                One of the downsides of attending multiple schools in a year is that they all have different curriculums for their classes. In her current Geometry class, they were studying a chapter that covered complementary angles; a topic her previous school had already covered weeks ago. It was an easy topic then, but now Sabbath just found it redundant. Also, it seemed a good number of her classmates had never heard of angles, never mind adjacent or complementary ones. The teacher had to stop his lecture every five minutes and explain some fundamental concept that should’ve been covered months ago. Or worse, something that was JUST mentioned but not heard by the obviously inattentive students. The class had been working on figuring out the same problem for ten minutes now.

                Groaning, Sabbath slumped down in her seat in the back of the classroom and lay her head down on her desk, tuning out the teacher’s obnoxious voice. _‘This class is hell,’_ she thought. Plus, the low-budget school didn’t seem to believe in air conditioning any more than the Titans believed in doorbells, and it had to be a good 80 degrees in that room, so it quite literally felt like a hell.

Sabbath watched as her breath fogged up the surface of her scuffed, fake-wood desk. Lazily, Sabbath traced her pencil’s eraser through the moisture, drawing random patterns. With a little more concentration, she then forced the moisture to condense into one good-sized droplet of water. Focusing even harder, Sabbath made the water condense into a perfectly round ice ball. Keeping her attention on it to keep it from melting, Sabbath nudged it back and forth across the desk with her pencil. When it bumped the edge of her notebook, she’d tap it back towards her, and then to the notebook again. Back and forth, back and forth…After a few minutes, Sabbath decided to see if she could move it without the pencil. Putting the pencil in her lap for the moment, she concentrated on the ice ball. Slowly, it rolled away from her and bumped into her notebook. It then scooted along to the edge of the desk’s surface and teetered on the edge before rolling back towards her face. Pleased, Sabbath continued to make the sphere dance along the surface of her desk, back and forth…back and forth..back and forth, gradually increasing its speed with every lap.

“Sabbath!!” the teacher suddenly shouted, completely startling her.

“What?!” she exclaimed (ignoring the fact that this one teacher refused to call her anything but her legal name), bolting upright in her seat and looking up to meet his angry gaze. Had he seen the ice ball? Surely he’d find it more than a little strange, especially in such a hot room. “I mean, yes, Mr. Parker?” she corrected herself, not wanting to come off as rude. Or guilty. Not that there was any evidence left, however. When the teacher had yelled at her, he’d broken her concentration. Without meaning to, Sabbath had accidentally made the ice ball evaporate in a cold puff of air.

                “Sleep on your own time, Hellingsworth. Do you think you can find the energy to come up and solve this problem?” he asked, motioning to the whiteboard.

                Repressing the urge to tell him she had enough energy to melt the stupid whiteboard right off the wall, Sabbath simply stood up and headed to the front of the room. More than a little embarrassed at being scolded in class, but relieved he’d thought she was just asleep, Sabbath decided to just keep her mouth shut. Ignoring the snickers from her classmates, she took the marker Mr. Parker was holding out to her. After taking a moment to consider the equation, she did out some quick math on the board and circled her answer. Knowing it was right, Sabbath couldn’t help the smugness that slipped into her smile as she capped the marker and handed it back to the now silent teacher.

Luckily, before he or anyone else could say anything, the bell rang, marking the end of the period. Heaving a sigh of relief, Sabbath walked back to her desk and quickly packed up her things. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Even music class was dull, though that was probably because the normal teacher was taking a sick day and was being filled in for by the oldest living substitute in the country.

However, things definitely got more interesting once she got home. The Millers had already arrived, evident by their van parked in the driveway. It was a little unusual for them to be home so early. Was one of them sick? A knot of tension began building in her stomach as she began to feel something wasn’t right. Usually when parents came home early, someone was either, sick, dead, or in BIG trouble. In her case, it tended to be the latter.

Sabbath was cautious as she opened the front door. “Anyone home?” she called out.

“Sabbath, come in here for a moment, dear. Your father and I would like to talk to you,” Mrs. Miller called out.

Uh-oh. This sounded like trouble. Setting her backpack and purse down by the coat rack and closing the door behind her, Sabbath followed the sound of Mrs. Miller’s voice into the family room. Mr. Miller was sitting in his recliner, and Mrs. Miller was sitting on the couch with a newspaper in her lap.

“What’s going on?” Sabbath asked.

In response, Mrs. Miller silently held up the newspaper for Sabbath to see. A bold headline read “NEW MYSTERY TITAN ADDED TO THE TEAM?”, and there below it was a large, color photo depicting a purple snot monster bursting into flames. The creature’s face was being blocked by a girl who had her back to the camera.  A familiar, flying girl with flaming hands, long black hair, large black bat wings, and a sweatshirt tied around her waist.

* * *

 

 


	10. Painful Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 9 of my OC Teen Titans Fanfic, The Second Curse. If you have not done so, please read the Prologue first, and then the chapters that precede this one. Note: there is no First Curse; this is not a sequel to anything. Hope you enjoy! : )
> 
> ::WARNING:: Things get kind of graphic in this one. I’m not going to change the official rating for chapters like this, I’ll just say up here. I’m personally rating this chapter B for blood and M for thematic, disturbing content (but if you can stomach it, I suggest you do so; there’s some good history on Dawn and Sabbath in this one).

* * *

 

 

Sabbath was stunned speechless, and the loud ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer adding a certain expectant air to the otherwise silent room. Sabbath felt it becoming harder to breath; the tension could’ve been cut with a knife. What to say? How could she have ended up as a headline in the local paper? True it was only the gossip column, but still. Sabbath thought back to when she’d been fighting Plasmus. At the time, all she could think about was the giant purple blob and the threat it posed to the Titans. She didn’t remember any news crews hanging around. But, now that she thought about it, there had been a crowd of citizens off to the side who had decided to stay and watch the show. Citizens with cellphones…

                “Well?” Mrs. Miller asked.

                “What do you have to say for yourself?” added Mr. Miller.

                Neither foster parent seemed at all pleased, though Sabbath couldn’t think of any reason they should really be mad at her. Yes, she’d made the paper in all her freakish, winged glory, but she was fighting a monster; saving the city! It’s not like she’d been slitting the tires of handicapped kids’ wheelchairs or something. And really, no one would recognize her in that picture except people who already knew her. It was taken from a weird, lower angle behind her (luckily, despite the fact that she was wearing a skirt in the photo, nothing embarrassing was revealed); she had mostly her back facing the photographer. All that could clearly be seen in the picture were her wings, hair, skirt, and flaming left arm (most of her lower half wasn’t even in the frame). Unfortunately, it was still all the Millers needed to recognize her.

                “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she began remorsefully, figuring the Millers were embarrassed to see that side of her published in such a public medium. She knew she never should’ve exposed her wings like that in broad daylight. This would teach her. “I just didn’t think you’d understand, or even want to know. I know my abilities make you uncomfortable, so I didn’t think you’d want to hear about a bunch of people just like me…”

                “Sabbath, we’re not upset about that; who you make friends with is your business,” Mr. Miller corrected. “Besides, the photograph doesn’t show your face, so no one knows it’s you. What we’re angry about is that you lied to us about your whereabouts. You weren’t shopping or hanging out with friends from school, were you?”

                “Have you even been going to school?” Mrs. Miller asked accusingly.

                “Of course I’ve been going to school!” Sabbath snapped. Why were they accusing her of such crazy things? They were making way too big a deal of this whole thing! “And as a matter of fact I was shopping; where do you think that outfit came from?” she asked, gesturing angrily at the newspaper. “I just wasn’t with friends from school. Hell, I haven’t made any friends in school since I was in elementary school! You know how I spend most of my time? Alone! And now that I’ve met some people who actually consider me a human being and want to be around me, I get yelled at for it?! OK, so I lied about who I was with, what does it matter? Except for that one night, I’ve always made curfew, haven’t I? What do you care where I go or what I do as long as I’m home on time?!” Now that her secret was out, a lot of built up emotions that she’d been hiding came spilling out all at once, making her seem angrier than she meant to, but there was nothing she could do to stop it.

                “We’re not yelling at you, Sabbath,” Mr. Miller said, keeping his voice perfectly level. “Like I said, what you do and who you make friends with is basically your business. We’re just upset that you’ve been lying to us.”

                “We also don’t appreciate you using such a harsh tone with us,” Mrs. Miller added, more emotional than her husband. “Actually, before you decided to start yelling like some kind of barbarian, we had only wanted to talk to you. We wanted to apologize for not discussing this with you sooner.”

                “You did?” Sabbath asked, taken aback by their lack of anger. She was starting to feel a bit foolish, but they HAD been the ones making wild accusations.

                Mr. Miller sighed. “Sabbath, do you know why we moved to this city?”

                “It was for your job, right?”

                “No, dear,” Mrs. Miller answered, a quiet sympathy entering her voice and replacing the previous anger. “It was because we’d heard about this group of local teenagers. They call themselves the ‘Teen Warriors’-“

                “Titans,” Sabbath corrected. “Teen Titans.”

                “Yes, that was it, the Teen Titans.,” Mrs. Miller continued. “Well anyhow, a friend of your father’s had suggested we come here. He works in the same company branch as your father. When we told him about you, he mentioned the Titans. He claimed they were like real life superheroes. He thought this city would be a great environment for you. When we found out your father could transfer here and still keep his job, we decided to move. I ended up having to switch companies, but a lawyer like me can always find work in big cities like this.”

                “We meant to tell you about them,” Mr. Miller added, “but you always seemed either too tired or too busy. We’re sorry you had to stumble upon them by yourself, you must’ve been rather shocked.”

                “Yeah, that’s one word for it…” Sabbath trailed off, now lost in thought. So they’d moved here just for her? Just so she’d finally make some friends? They must really care about her after all, in their own way (their own, no-hugging-required way). She didn’t know what to say.

                “We encourage you to get to know them,” said Mrs. Miller, smiling. “We want you to be happy here and to make some real friends. We can’t imagine how tough the last few years have been for you, but we wanted your life with us to be a fresh, new start.”

                “And on that note, here,” Mr. Miller said, producing a wrapped package that had been previously hidden from view beside his chair. “We got this for you.”

                Numbly, Sabbath reached out and took it. It was a small box wrapped in gaudy giftwrap. Was it jewelry? Slowly, she tore off the shiny paper and revealed the plain white box underneath. Dropping the paper to the floor, she lifted the cover off the box. Inside was a sleek, new cellphone. It looked to be plain black, but when Sabbath slid it open, a hot pink, full QWERTY keyboard was revealed. There was a small loop on the top left corner of the phone to string cellphone charms or key chains from. Dangling there on a thin, black cord was a chunky, silver cross charm.

                “I saw it in the window of a local electronics store yesterday,” Mrs. Miller said. “It reminded me of that outfit you came home in the other day, and since you needed a new cellphone...”

                “It’s all set up and ready to go,” added Mr. Miller. “We even charged it up.”

                “But the charger wouldn’t fit in the box,” Mrs. Miller continued. “We’ll give it to you later.”

                Not wanting to speak, fearing that if she did she’d break out into tears, Sabbath just leaned down and wrapped Mrs. Miller in a hug, and then Mr. Miller. Surprisingly, they each gently returned the embrace. “Thank you…” she whispered to each of them.

                “You’re welcome, dear,” her foster mother replied, her eyes shiny with repressed tears, much as Sabbath suspected her own were.

                “We hope you like it,” Mr. Miller added, smiling.

                “I love it!” Sabbath assured them, once she trusted herself not to cry.

                “Good,” Mr. Miller said.

                “And don’t be afraid to talk to us, no matter what,” Mrs. Miller continued. “You can tell us anything. But if for some reason you can’t get ahold of us, God is always listening,” she said, gesturing to the cross charm.

                Sabbath knew what she meant, and it was the thought that counted (plus, the cellphone WAS pretty awesome). Having run out of words, she simply smiled and nodded in agreement (under any other circumstances, she would’ve replied in her usual indifferent, sarcastic manner). After a moment she added, “I’m just going to go bring my bag upstairs and start on my homework. Let me know when dinner’s ready?”

                “Ah, not so fast…” Mr. Miller called out as Sabbath turned to leave. “There’s still one more matter at hand.”

                Sabbath flinched and slowly turned back around to face her foster parents.

                “We’re happy you’ve met a few kindred spirits in this city, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been lying to us,” Mrs. Miller sad, the stern tone returning. “But before we lay down an appropriate punishment, let’s clear up a few things.”

                “O…k,” Sabbath said cautiously. “Like what?”

                “Well let’s start with how you lost your other phone,” Mr. Miller said.

                Ah. That. “Well,” Sabbath began. “It’s kind of a long story.”

                “We have all the time in the world,” Mrs. Miller said, crossing her arms. Then, nodding to the space on the couch next to her, she said, “Sit.”

                Sabbath knew there’d be no easy way of escaping once they had her on that couch; but she also knew her foster mother’s order wasn’t up for negotiation. Hanging her head in defeat, Sabbath’s shoulders slumped as she made her way to the couch and took a seat next to Mrs. Miller.

                The atmosphere in the room got more and more uncomfortable as Sabbath told the Millers what had happened that day. She told them about Cinderblock and how she’d gotten hurt fighting it, explaining that a crash landing on a mini-van had crushed both the cellphone and her left wing. Mrs. Miller flinched, and Sabbath thought she caught a glimpse of sympathy in her foster mother’s eyes. She told them about how she’d woken up in Titans’ Tower, and how they’d fixed her up. Mr. Miller shifted uncomfortably in his chair. She even told them about how one of the Titans had walked her home, although she left out exactly who it was. They didn’t need to know that part.

                Once her story was finished, Mr. Miller asked his next question. “Alright. So what about that Friday night you told us you were going to the movies? Were you in the Tower unsupervised with those boys that night as well?”

                His insinuation was obvious, and Sabbath was offended he would even think such a thing about her, or about the Titans. But, seeing as she was already in the hot seat, she figured it was best to suppress her rage and just answer the questions. A fight would only prolong her suffering on that couch. “Well, they’re not all boys, you know,” she corrected, keeping her voice as calm as possible despite all the jagged comebacks spinning through her head. “But no, that Friday night I was by myself. I just took a quick flight over the city. I wanted to see if my wing was fully healed, but I also wanted to get a better idea of where the Tower was. I flew down to the coast, but I didn’t get any closer than the lighthouse.”

                “Lighthouse?”

                “Yes, lighthouse,” she clarified, wondering what part of the word was so hard for him to understand. “There’s a lighthouse in the harbor about a block or two away from the Tower. I didn’t see the Titans.”

                “What about Saturday?” Mrs. Miller asked. “Is that when this picture was taken?” she said, holding up the newspaper article in question once again.

                “Yes,” Sabbath answered wearily. She was getting sick of this whole interrogation. She quickly explained the series of events that had occurred that day as well; everything from the thrift store in town, to her visit to the Titans’ Tower (though leaving out the details of what exactly she did there), to the pizza parlor in town and the appearance of Plasmus.

                By now, the Millers looked like they’d really rather be anywhere but in that room, discussing the things they were, but yet seemed to feel it was their duty as good foster parents to listen attentively. After all, hadn’t they just told Sabbath to feel free to tell them anything?

                “And that’s about it,” Sabbath summed up, only leaving out the detail about the communicator. Again, she didn’t feel that was something they really needed to know. The Millers thought she was just friends with the Titans, not working with them, and that was how she wanted to leave it. “I haven’t seen the Titans since Saturday. You know the rest.”

                “There now,” Mrs. Miller said with forced cheer. “Doesn’t it feel good to have everything out in the open?” She was the first one to speak following Sabbath’s story. Mr. Miller, meanwhile, seemed to have turned into a silent, uncomfortable stone statue.

                “Yeah, I guess so,” Sabbath replied, not meaning it but knowing it was what the Millers wanted to hear. Honestly, she felt just the opposite. She didn’t enjoy telling them about her adventures with the Titans. It was almost as awkward for her as it was for her foster parents. A heavy silence followed, no one seeming to know what to say in response, nor how to really close the discussion.

                The grandfather clock suddenly chimed 5 o’clock, surprising everyone in the otherwise silent room. Sabbath was shocked, how could it be so late? Had she really been sitting here spilling her guts to the Millers for almost two hours? She hadn’t even heard it ring for 4 o’clock.

                Suddenly, it was as if a spell had been broken. The Millers snapped out of their uncomfortable haze. Mr. Miller said, “We’re glad you told us the truth Sabbath, but that doesn’t change the fact that you lied to us to begin with. So to discourage you from doing so in the future, you’re grounded for the next week.”

                “What?!” Sabbath cried. She hadn’t seen that one coming. “But that’s not fair! The only reason I lied was because-“

                “Sabbath, don’t talk back to your father,” Mrs. Miller said sternly. “And lying is a terribly bad habit that can lead to nothing but trouble.”

                Sabbath ground her teeth together and squeezed the cellphone’s box in her hands. She cried out in frustration before stomping angrily towards the stairs to her room. “I’M NEVER TALKING TO YOU AGAIN!” she yelled over her shoulder. It was an empty, childish threat, but it was all that would come out. As she ascended the staircase, stopping only to snatch her backpack and purse from by the door, the smoke alarm overhead went off, screeching and wailing at a blood-curdling pitch. Sabbath ignored it, as well as the scolding shouts from the Millers. As she turned on the landing to head up the second flight of stairs, she caught a glimpse of Mr. Miller furiously attempting to reset the alarm from the control box by the door, while Mrs. Miller tried to console a panicked Robin (the kitten of course) who was frantically trying to worm his way under the couch.

                Once in her room, Sabbath slammed the door firmly behind herself and dropped her bags on the floor before angrily throwing herself on her bed. She heard the alarm cut off downstairs, immediately followed by the muffled sound of the phone ringing somewhere in the house, and knew it was the alarm company calling to make sure everything was alright. Sabbath couldn’t help but smile as she imagined the Millers trying to explain that it was a false alarm. She knew they’d never reveal the real reason behind the alarm’s going off and would undoubtedly make up some half-plausible story. The irony was that they’d just lectured her about lying.

                Sabbath sighed. Slowly removing her new cellphone from its box, she turned it over and over in her hands, examining it as her mind retraced everything that had just happened. Had her entire relationship with the Millers just changed? Had her opinions of them changed? Or would everything still be exactly as it was before? She had no way of knowing for sure; only time would tell.

                It was all too much to think about, at least at the moment. She had more immediate problems, namely her recent grounding. She couldn’t believe they’d grounded her, when she’d only lied in the first place because she thought that’s what they’d have wanted! Sabbath had lived with a lot of families throughout her life, but she was starting to realize that all parents were equally impossible in their own ways. Grounding seemed to be a pretty universal punishment, and Sabbath had always hated it. Not that anyone ever liked being grounded, but still. She found it very…degrading. Grounding a child was like tying a dog up in the back yard; it never accomplished anything other than showing that parents had total control and weren’t afraid to implement it.

‘ _Nazis…’_ Sabbath thought.

Rolling over on her side and turning the cellphone on, Sabbath squinted at its unexpectedly bright screen. After a brief introductory screen, the main screen came up, featuring the date, the time, and a continuously scrolling banner that read, “We love you!” The background image was a blurry group photo of the Millers holding a struggling Robin (again, the kitten) and standing in front of an out-of-focus portrait of Jesus. Sabbath recognized the portrait as the one that currently hung in the living room. The Millers flashed cheesy, forced smiles up at Sabbath from the phone’s screen. Mrs. Miller’s right arm loomed towards the top left corner of the screen; she’d clearly been the one taking the picture.

_‘They’re really not that bad,’_ Sabbath thought to herself. It was true, though she hated to admit it. She’d had far worse families than this. They had all started out as perfectly normal foster parents, but it was as if once they had Sabbath and learned what she was, they couldn’t handle it. She closed her eyes as memories dusted themselves off and drifted into her conscious mind.

It had all started with the Collins, back when she and Dawn were still adopted together. They seemed like nice, normal people who wanted nothing other than to start a family. They’d adopted the girls as babies, and things had actually been pretty pleasant for a long time. The Collins had eventually told the girls they were adopted, but the Collins were all they’d ever known, so it didn’t affect their bond. The girls thought of the place as their home, until things had started to go downhill the night the twins fully came into their powers.

Sabbath flinched at the painful memory. The nightmares had been nothing new, but the burning in her arms certainly was. Not wanting to panic the Collins, she and Dawn had tried to act like it wasn’t too bad. Regardless, they couldn’t deny the fact that it wasn’t going away, so they were taken to the hospital. Then, within the hour and right before the doctors’ eyes, dark handprints had appeared, encircling the girls’ forearms. They looked like a cross between bruises and burns, and were far bigger than the girls’ own hands. No one could explain how they’d gotten there, but because the girls were under the Collins’ watch when it had happened (the doctors assumed the actual injury had occurred hours earlier, saying it wasn’t unusual for resulting marks to take time to appear), it didn’t look good. Of course the Collins protested, saying they would never hurt their children. Dawn and Sabbath had also testified to those regards, but it made no difference. Someone had to be to blame.

Sabbath cried that whole night after they were released from the hospital. She vividly remembered sitting in her pajamas next to Dawn, bawling in the silent, too-bright waiting room. Dawn had gone unusually quiet after the Collins had been taken away in a police cruiser, but Sabbath suspected she felt just as much pain. Earlier that year, the Collins had given the twins each a solid silver (these people were quite rich) hair clip; Dawn’s was a butterfly, and Sabbath’s was a flower. The Collins had presented them with the clips on their 10th birthday, cheerfully saying “you can’t have one without the other!” referring both to flowers and butterflies (Sabbath had been pretty sure it was bees that were important to flowers and not butterflies, but she figured a bee wouldn’t have made as cute of a hair accessories), as well as the twins’ inseparability. Sabbath didn’t wear hers much, since she had yet to discover the magic of a hair straightener, so the clip ended up doing more harm than good, but Dawn literally slept with the thing. Now, as the two girls sat in the waiting room with a young nurse (who was supposed to be supervising them but was too busy doing crossword puzzles), Dawn had taken the clip out of her hair and was holding it tightly in her hands as she stared off quietly into space. Sabbath had noticed this at the time, but was too busy crying her eyes out to say anything. But she remembered wondering how the Hell Dawn could NOT cry. But she never got the chance to ask.

Eventually another police cruiser showed up to retrieve the girls. After briefly talking with the nurse that had been sitting with them, he instructed the twins to go with him. Dawn simply got up and followed the officer; the silent, haunted look never leaving her face. Sabbath stood up shakily and followed her sister, noticing before she walked out the door what Dawn had been staring at. There was a small water cooler propped up against the far wall. Sabbath hadn’t noticed it on her way into the room, but she was willing to bet its water tank hadn’t been frozen solid before they’d arrived. Puzzled, she opened her mouth to whisper a question to Dawn, but the unsympathetic officer shushed her before she could make a sound and quickly herded her and her sister into the back of the cruiser.

The twins were brought to the police station as well, though they never saw the Collins again. Sabbath attempted to convince the police that the Collins were innocent (Dawn didn’t say a word), but they didn’t seem to buy it. After a time, the police realized they wouldn’t get a different answer from the twins, and the same officer that had brought them there escorted them back to the orphanage.

It took a few days, but eventually Dawn started talking again. She and Sabbath slowly settled into the routine of orphanage life, though they never fit in with their peers. They were only adopted once more as a pair after that. A young couple, the Stewarts, took them in. That only lasted a couple weeks. Dawn and Sabbath didn’t take kindly to someone trying to replace the Collins, and it showed in their powers as well as their general behavior. The Stewarts became convinced their foster children were the spawn of Satanists and were dead afraid of them. They’d brandish crucifixes and would sometimes even lock the girls in the basement, until of course one of the twins either destroyed the door, or destroyed something (like a main water pipe or fuse box) in the basement that made it necessary for the Stewarts to go down there.

It soon became too much for the Stewarts to take, and they brought Dawn and Sabbath back to the orphanage, leaving them on the front steps. After that, the girls were adopted separately, which made them even more miserable. They started acting like true demons whenever they were adopted, desperate for the foster parents to return them to the orphanage where at least they would have each other.

Unfortunately, Sabbath was then adopted by a very tough family who refused to give her up. The Kleins were definitely not your average family. They weren’t at all terrified of what Sabbath was; in fact, they loved it. They were literal Devil-Worshippers. They thought Sabbath was incredible, and that she was some kind of link between humans and Satan (although she kind of is). They were always demanding her help with their Dark Masses (they even called her “their Little Black Sabbath”) or other various displays of power, sometimes exhausting her nearly to the point of passing out. Sometimes they even took blood from her while she slept. Sabbath tried refusing their demands, thinking they’d get fed up with her and return her to the orphanage like everyone else had, but they wouldn’t. They’d punish her, lock her up, or stop feeding her, but they refused to give her back. Those people were really quite insane.

Dawn, however, had now been living in the orphanage without her sister for quite some time. Usually, neither sister had to wait too long for the other to come back. Dawn felt completely deserted, she had no friends, no parents, not even the teachers at the orphanage seemed to like her; and now she didn’t even have her sister. She rapidly fell into a deep depression that now amount of medication could ease. She eventually grew tired of waiting for Sabbath to come back, and decided being alone would be better than being surrounded by people who ignored her very existence. One night, she ran away from the orphanage, leaving no explanation. She simply disappeared. They tried having the police look for her, but the police figured that since she would be 18 in about a year or two, there was no point; they knew she’d run away.

                Eventually, Sabbath managed to use the neighbor’s phone (the Kleins kept all phones well hidden) long enough to call the police. The Kleins were arrested, and Sabbath was finally returned to the orphanage. Only this time, Dawn wasn’t there waiting for her. Worried, Sabbath desperately sought answers from the orphanage staff and residents, but all anyone could tell her was that she’d run away; vanished without a trace. Sabbath was crushed. She couldn’t believe her sister would give up on her like that, or that she’d even think of leaving without her. Her sixteenth birthday was the first Sabbath ever had to spend without her sister. She didn’t feel like celebrating one bit. Sabbath swore to never celebrate another birthday without her sister; it just didn’t feel right.

                From that day on, Sabbath felt her only connection to her sister and dead mother was her powers. She dedicated every ounce of her spare time to practicing her abilities, guided by the Dark Man’s instructions in her dreams. Between that and the amount of practice she’d gotten living with the Kleins, the Dark Man soon decided to reward her for her dedication to her gifts.

                One night at the orphanage, Sabbath had awoken from another nightmare. In it, the Dark man had seemed very happy with her; pleased with her hard work. He told her he was going to reward her, but didn’t reveal any more than that before shed woken up, gasping and scared like usual. Unable to fall back asleep, Sabbath stumbled across the large room to the bathroom, being as quiet as possible so as not to wake any of the other girls sleeping in the room.

                As she splashed water onto her face and neck, trying to wash off some of the sweat that had broken out across her skin, her back began to ache. At first she figured she’d just slept in a weird position, but the pain soon increased to unbearable degrees. Her back and shoulders burned, stung, and throbbed. Unable to support herself, Sabbath had sagged against the bathroom wall and slid down to the floor. The pain seemed to be coming in unrelenting waves, each more painful than the last. It seemed to be more focused on her shoulder blades as time went on. Finally she felt something sharp break the skin from the inside. Shocked and in immense pain, Sabbath cried out, rousing the other girls from their sleep.

                Several girls burst into the bathroom and found Sabbath, convulsing and crying, curled up on the bathroom floor. She couldn’t find the breath to tell them what was wrong, as she was fading back and forth between consciousness, but the blood that was beginning to dot the back of her nightshirt was enough to make them understand. The younger girls hung back in fear, but one of the older ones came and knelt beside Sabbath, carefully lifting the bloody shirt off Sabbath’s back. There she saw two black, sharp nubs slowly forcing their way through Sabbath’s skin. The girl dropped the hem of Sabbath’s shirt in alarm and disgust. One of the teachers had then been woken up by one of the girls and brought to help. By the time the teacher arrived, however, the two appendages had worked their way fully out, though stayed tucked tightly against Sabbath’s back. The jagged slits they’d left in her back were healing at an inhumanly fast pace right before the teacher’s eyes, not even leaving scars.

                The pain was quickly subsiding, and Sabbath’s consciousness was returning. As she opened her eyes she saw the ring of girls surrounding her, each with a different look of horror or disgust plastered on their face. “D…Dawn..?” Sabbath weakly whispered, thinking for a moment she’d spotted her sister in the crowd.

                “Dawn’s not here, dear,” the teacher, who was still beside her, answered. Her voice barely concealed her extreme revulsion.

                “What happened…?” Sabbath asked, still lying on the cold, tile floor as she was too weak to sit up.

                “We’re hoping you could tell us,” a girl behind her said, sounding like she’d just seen a ghost.

                “My back…” Sabbath trailed off, remembering the intense pain in her shoulder blades.

                “Yes, dear,” the teacher said. “Let’s take you to the infirmary. Can you stand?”

                Despite the question, neither the teacher nor any of the other girls offered her a helping hand. Regardless, Sabbath managed to stand. Leaning on the wall for support, she followed the teacher to the infirmary, a crowd of disturbed girls following behind her, gawking and whispering. The nurse, who had to be woken up, couldn’t make any more sense out of Sabbath’s sudden mutation than anyone else. All she could do was wipe the remaining blood off Sabbath’s back, although she couldn’t find any injuries or sources of blood, so she saw no reason to bandage her.

                It seemed the nurse had a stronger stomach than the rest of the inhabitants and employees of the orphanage. As Sabbath sat on a stool, the back of her shirt pushed up to her neck, the nurse slowly and calmly wiped an alcohol-soaked cloth along Sabbath’s back and the new appendages sprouting out from under her shoulder blades. As she did so, they began to unfold, sticky with remaining blood and plasma. Sabbath felt them move, but still couldn’t see what they were. The nurse gasped.

“Oh _my_!” the nurse whispered.

                “What?” Sabbath asked, becoming more and more nervous; why wouldn’t anyone tell her what was going on? She felt the nurse take hold of one of the appendages and fully unfold it. Sabbath flinched.

                “Does that hurt?” the nurse asked faintly.

                “…No, not really,” she replied. It didn’t hurt; it was just a weird feeling. Whatever had just grown out of her back, it was sensitive. Plus, the alcohol the nurse was wiping it with made it cold. Sabbath shivered. “What is it?” she asked, afraid of the answer, but having to know.

                “I’m not sure…” the nurse trailed off. After wiping down both appendages and unfolding them, she handed Sabbath a mirror. Walking her over to a larger, full-length mirror, the nurse then instructed Sabbath to stand with her back to the full mirror and use the small one to see what was reflected there. Sabbath did as the nurse told her, and as the nurse held up the back of her shirt, Sabbath saw exactly what had left everyone so disgusted and speechless.

                There, below the blood-caked ends of her curly, sleep-mussed ponytail was a pair of large, black, pointy wings. As Sabbath stared, dumbfounded, at her reflection, she moved first one wing, and then the other. The joints were stiff, like a muscle that hadn’t been used in a long time (or ever, in this case), yet she found she could move them easily, just like an arm or a leg. Stretched out to their full width, Sabbath estimated the wingspan to be about as wide as she was tall.

She stared, fascinated, as she flexed her new wings. Was this what the Dark Man had meant when He’d told her he’d reward her? If so, this was a terrifying gift. Or was it? True, it was very unusual, and even her own initial reaction (after pain) had been shock. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to dislike them. In fact, Sabbath found she rather liked how they looked; their spiky, black appearance contrasting with her smooth, pale skin, yet at the same time they seemed to match her dark hair and eyes perfectly. Not to mention the fact that wings probably meant she could fly. She grinned.

Suddenly remembering she wasn’t alone, Sabbath turned her gaze back to the nurse, who was now totally stunned silent. The nurse had apparently dropped the hem of Sabbath’s shirt when her wings had moved, but their extended joints had prevented it from sliding down her back. Realizing this, Sabbath looked over her shoulder to watch as she retracted her wings, which were still spread out, and tucked them tightly against her back. Then, reaching up and tugging her shirt back into place, Sabbath once again looked back at the nurse. Hiding her wings had seemed to snap the poor woman out of whatever horror-induced coma she’d been in. Still, neither Sabbath nor the nurse knew what more to say to the other.

After a moment, the nurse cleared her throat and said, “Well, dear, if you don’t need anything else, it’s very late and you should try to go back to sleep.”

Sabbath was a little surprised. Was that all she had to say? _‘Then again,’_ Sabbath thought to herself, _‘What else could she say?’_ Muttering some kind of farewell to the Nurse, Sabbath turned and left the infirmary.

In the months that followed, things changed for Sabbath at the orphanage. Suddenly, people went from ignoring her to outright avoiding her. Now, instead of bumping into her in the halls or cutting her in the lunch line, people who saw her coming turned tail and quickly went the other way. People she talked to no longer ignored her, they didn’t dare. Instead they listened with a strained, dear-lord-will-I-live-through-this-day expression. They already knew Sabbath was rather…different and that she got adopted a lot, but it seemed that seeing (or hearing about) her grow giant bat wings overnight had solidified what they all must have subconsciously felt: that she was evil, terrifying, and life-threatening.

While Sabbath never exactly liked the other people in the orphanage, she never found any reasons to hate them exactly. She’d simply never gotten to know them, since she’d spent all of her time with her sister. To her, everyone else had just been background noise. But now that Dawn had abandoned her and everyone else feared her, she began to realize just how alone she really was. She didn’t like it one bit.

She began to act out in pure frustration at her unjust treatment, blaming Dawn for most of it. Between that, her new wings (which she’d taken to hiding under a bulky, man’s pullover she’d dug out of the lost-and-found. The Kleins had been the ones to buy her a real hoodie. They’d been crazy, yes, but they’d never minded accommodating her uniqueness), and her ever-evolving powers, it became harder and harder for families to adopt her.

In the 6 months since she turned 16, she’d been adopted 4 times; 3, not including the Millers. She’d been with them so briefly, Sabbath didn’t even bother remembering their names. Her behavior when she’d initially adopted separately from Dawn was nothing compared to this. The first family had returned her after a week and a half of rebellion and unexplainable, mini-natural disasters. The second family had been much more cheerful than most others Sabbath had seen. They’d kept her for about 2 months, having returned her when she threatened to reenact the prom scene from Carrie if they made her go to the Sophomore Winter Dance. The third family had been particularly large, and very rich. They had 5 kids (each seemingly from a different country), including a relatively new baby, when they adopted Sabbath. She never could figure out exactly why they did so, but she just figured the wife was one of those women who loved motherhood and wanted to take care of a house load of kids until she keeled over. They’d returned her about 3 months later when she’d unintentionally set the house on fire.

As time had passed, Sabbath had grown less and less frustrated with her situation. She’d come to realize that she’d be 18 soon enough, and then she’d be free to look for Dawn. She realized that acting like a monster unfortunately wouldn’t make the time pass any faster.

Then, the Millers had adopted her. At the time, Sabbath knew her record had been full of various red flags and black marks too numerous to count, as well as the heavy, vague title of “Special Needs”. For some reason, the Millers had felt bad for her. When they’d visited Sabbath in the orphanage, she hadn’t seemed monstrous (they had yet to noticed the wings), just unhappy. They figured the “Special Needs” just meant autistic, and none of the orphanage staff seemed willing to clarify beyond saying, “She’s a special girl,” with a tight smile. So the Millers decided to adopt her, in hopes of turning her from a troubled youth into a normal, happy adult. They believed all she needed was Jesus’ love and a happy, stable home.

Thinking back, Sabbath realized that her ominous record had probably been what inspired the Millers to be so overbearing. The cellphone, the early curfew, Principal’s List, the rides to school…it all made sense, now that she thought about it.

Sabbath sighed. Understanding where the Millers were coming from didn’t make it any easier to be mad at them for grounding her. Flipping open the cellphone again, Sabbath couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face as the cheesy picture and scrolling, “We love you!” glowed up at her from the screen. Even if they were a little tough on her at times, Sabbath had to admit she’d definitely had to deal with worse.

In the back of her mind, she wished Dawn could be there with her. Sabbath’s heart panged at the thought, she missed her twin terribly. If Dawn were living with her and the Millers here in this city, Sabbath didn’t have any doubt that things would be perfect. _‘Well, almost perfect,’_ she thought to herself. Thing hadn’t been perfect since the Collins. Another twinge of pain echoed through her heart.

Rolling out of bed, Sabbath placed her new cellphone on the nightstand next to her alarm clock and strode across her room. The sun was setting now, flooding her box-filled room with a deep, pinkish-orange glow. Kneeling in front of a box labeled “Old & FRAGILE Crap” (Sabbath found that the only fun thing about moving was putting silly labels on the boxes), Sabbath ripped the duct tape off the top and pulled out handfuls of crumpled newspaper. Reaching in, she then carefully pulled out a wooden jewelry box. The Collins had given it to her, of course, along with everything that was in it. Well, given it to her and Dawn to share. However, when Dawn had run away, it seemed all she took was her Walkman, a few pairs of clothes, a flashlight, and her silver hair clip. Not having the heart to throw away any of Dawn’s stuff, Sabbath had been left to tote around her sisters belongings for over six months now.

Layered underneath the jewelry box for extra padding were more of Dawn’s clothes, but the jewelry box was all Sabbath was looking for. Walking away from Dawn’s clothes for the moment the same way Sabbath felt Dawn had walked away from her, she carried the jewelry box back to her bed.

Sitting cross-legged on her comforter, Sabbath placed the wooden box in her lap and opened it’s now creaky lid. Inside were a couple necklaces, bracelets, and clip-on earrings. Most of the stuff had been just for playing dress-up. The rest was children’s jewelry that Sabbath had long since outgrown but couldn’t bear to part with. There was also jewelry the girls had made; simple string necklaces and bracelets. The top compartment as well as most of the box’s drawers were filled with things like that.

Carefully, Sabbath pulled the whole tray out of the top of the box, revealing the hidden compartment between the top compartment and the first drawer. Sabbath remembered how fascinated she and her sister had been when they’d discovered it. There, nestled in the left-hand corner of the compartment was Sabbath’s silver flower hair clip. Dawn used to keep her clip in there, too, whenever she wasn’t wearing it (which honestly wasn’t very often)

Setting the box aside next to the removed top tray, she carefully lifted out the clip. Red light from the setting sun glinted off its surface as she did so, making it look almost molten. Being solid silver, it was heavy in her hand, yet it was still smaller than she remembered it being when she’d gotten it. It was a simple, rounded flower shape with six petals and a small, raised circle in the middle for the flower’s center. When she’d received it, it had been about the size of the palm of her hand, but now Sabbath realized it wasn’t so big at all. In reality it was about half the size of her new cellphone’s screen.

Sabbath felt overwhelmed with sadness as she again thought of her sister deserting her. Even though they were nowhere near identical, Sabbath had always felt that she and Dawn had shared a close bond. Maybe it was because they were all they’d ever really had, or maybe it was the unique powers they’d both been born with, Sabbath wasn’t sure. All she really knew was that thing’s weren’t right without her around.

“You can’t have one without the other,” Sabbath whispered, her voice breaking and tears falling from her eyes.

Just then, Mr. Miller called up the stairs, “Sabbath, dinner’s ready!” returning her thoughts to the present and shattering her cloud of melancholy nostalgia.

Quickly wiping her eyes and clearing her throat, Sabbath called back, “Be down in a minute!” Putting her hair clip back in its place, she suddenly realized she didn’t want to bury the jewelry box in old clothes and crumpled newspapers anymore. Reassembling the jewelry box, Sabbath slid it onto her nightstand behind her alarm clock. Then, before she could forget, she grabbed her new cellphone off the nightstand and stuffed it in her purse, which was still on the floor with her backpack where she’d left it, before heading down to dinner.

Even though things weren’t as perfect as they’d once been, things could be a lot worse. And, unbeknownst to Sabbath, things would indeed change for the worse. Soon.

* * *

 


End file.
